Woman jailed for cheating two employers over 4 years
Posted: 04 April 2012 1324 hrs
SINGAPORE: A woman who cheated her employers of nearly S$370,000 has been given four and a half years behind bars.
Normah Pungut stole from two employers over a four-year period from 2007 to 2011.
The 41 year old was working as an executive at marine trading firm Variflex when she misappropriated more than S$328,000 from her boss between April 2007 and December 2009.
While she was under investigation for the missing funds, she took on a new job at Evo Precision Engineering in March 2010 and continued her cheating spree till August 2011. Her job there was to prepare cheques for the firm.
She admitted to 156 charges of misappropriation, forgery of bank statements and putting up fictitious payment vouchers. The prosecution proceeded with 23 charges.
The court heard that she used the ill-gotten money to foot her bills, including the downpayment of a car and an HDB flat.
In her mitigation plea, Normah's lawyers said it was her husband, Kamarudin Nordin, who landed her in trouble.
The unemployed man would go shopping and ask his wife to pay for the items. The car was said to be among the items he purchased.
He then pressured his wife into committing fraud so that she can pay for his shopping.
Kamarudin is currently nowhere to be found.
Noting the large amount she had misappropriated, District Judge Liew Thiam Leng sentenced Normah to four and a half years' jail.
Upon hearing this, the bespectacled woman broke down and cried. Her family members were spotted in the public gallery.
For issuing cheques with forged signatures, Normah could have been jailed up to 7 years and fined, on each count.
The penalty for forging bank statements to cover up her fraud trail could have been four years' jail, a fine, or both, on each count.
As for falsifying cash payment vouchers, she could have been jailed up to 10 years, fined, or both.
The court heard that she has paid back S$1,500 to her first employer.
- CNA/wm
