PHILIPSBURG – Between May and August 2022, Lathasha Mills (43) stole more than $115.000 of taxpayer money while she was a head cashier at the tax collector’s office. On Thursday, the Court of First Instance ordered her to repay everything and sentenced this alleged compulsive gambler to 500 hours of community service and a one-year suspended prison sentence.
“I’m so sorry for what I did,” Ms. Mills said, through tears, during her trial on Thursday. “I really didn’t have a reason. It’s something that happened like that.”
As head cashier, the St. Peters resident was responsible for ensuring that the money in government cash registers matched the day’s incoming and outgoing payments.
She was also responsible for placing the money in a safe at the end of the verification process. Instead, she slipped some of the money into her purse and walked out.
Investigators concluded that Ms. Mills did this approximately three times a week, with an average haul of $2.000 each time. The public accounting office SOAB later determined that the theft amounted to $80.000 over a four-month period.
Ms. Mills admitted her wrongs on August 30, 2022, during a meeting she had requested with her superiors. That’s when a tax office employee filed a complaint about missing money.
Ms Mills told the judge she did not remember what she did with the stolen money because at the time she was suffering from memory lapses. She explained that these attacks of amnesia were due to the intense stress she was experiencing due to family problems.
The judge found Mills’ story hard to believe and asked if it was possible she had lost everything gambling.
She based this question on the statement of a witness, who said he had been to the casino with Ms. Mills several times a week and who thought she had a problem with gambling because she continued to gamble even after they left the place.
The judge also read from a probation office report, which recommended that Mills receive treatment at the Turning Point Foundation for her gambling addiction. The recommendation followed Ms. Mills’ confession to a probation officer that she went to the casino four times a week and spent at least $100 on each visit.
Ms. Mills denied telling the probation officer that she was still going to the casino, saying it was her past behavior. “I used to play, but not like this,” she said.
The defendant told the judge that she did not consider herself to have a gambling problem, but she admitted that it could be a blind spot.
“If a lot of people think I have a problem, they might not be wrong,” Ms. Mills said. “Maybe they see something I don’t see.
The prosecutor considered that the accusation of embezzlement as a civil servant was proven and requested 240 hours of community service and a one-year suspended prison sentence, accompanied by probation. three-year test. She also asked the judge to impose mandatory treatment at the Turning Point Foundation and the Mental Health Foundation (MHF) as special conditions.
In addition, the prosecutor demanded that Mills repay the government all of the stolen money, or face imprisonment for failure to do so.
“This theft is extremely serious because the money was supposed to be used for schools, playgrounds or whatever the country needed,” the prosecutor said.
The prosecutor told the court that the forensic financial investigation into Ms Mills and her relatives did not reveal that the stolen money had been deposited into their bank accounts or sent abroad.
“There is no other possibility that the accused went to the casino or that the money was lost in power outages,” the prosecutor said. “Either outcome is speculation, but what is a fact is that the money was taken.”
Defense lawyer Sjamira Roseburg did not dispute her client’s guilt, but said the only question was what could be considered an appropriate punishment.
She emphasized her client’s personal situation in arguing for a reduced sentence, noting that Mills, currently unemployed, is a first-time offender.
Ms. Mills was fired after the theft was discovered. She had been a civil servant for more than 10 years previously and had served as head cashier for five years.
In her verdict, the judge found Mills guilty of the facts with which she was accused and sentenced the former civil servant in accordance with the prosecutor’s requirements.
The judge told Ms. Mills that she should be grateful for the prosecutor’s submissions, because defendants are usually sent straight to prison for embezzling such large sums of money. Instead, the prosecutor asked for a suspended prison sentence in Mills’ case. This means she will avoid a jail cell if she complies with the conditions of her probation, which include mandatory treatment for gambling addiction.
As for the $115.000 in ill-gotten money, Ms. Mills will have to spend three years in prison if she does not repay the entire amount to the government, according to the ruling.
The judge said she doubted Mills’ story about the power outages. In this case, the judge wondered why the accused did not seek medical attention the first time she realized she was missing money.
“These things don’t happen by chance. These are choices you make,” the judge told Ms Mills.
Source: Daily Herald
Source: Faxinfo https://faxinfo.fr/en/lancien-caissiere-en-chef-doit-rembourser-plus-de-115-500-dollars-voles-au-bureau-du-percepteur/
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