Legal expert jailed for defrauding employer

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

A legal consultant who conned his employer out of Dhs145, 420 by showing him doctored receipts has been imprisoned and fined Dhs124, 040. The Arab defendant, 55, forged four payment receipts of cases and showed they were issued by the Dubai Courts.He used them by handing them to his Egyptian employer, 44, at a complaints handling company.

He convinced the employer he was taking the fees to the courts. However, he pocketed them. During court questioning, he denied the charges.The Dubai Criminal Court jailed him for one year plus deportation. Prosecutors appealed the ruling demanding a tough punishment. The Dubai Appeals Court has sentenced him to six months behind bars to be followed by deportation and ordered him to pay a Dhs124, 040 fine.

Before police and prosecutors, the employer narrated that he tasked the defendant to follow up with complaints filed by his company against other companies and paying fees to the courts besides other matters.

“I would hand him fees required for filing complaints. I later discovered he was photocopying court receipts, faking them and sending me their counterfeit copies on Whatsapp. He did this and embezzled the fees.”

The employer said he went with copies of receipts to the courts and confirmed they were fake. He also learnt from the courts’ collection section that the defendant did not make payments. He contacted the police.  A female witness said she was at the company when a man arrived saying he had come to intercede with the employer for the defendant in order to find an amicable solution regarding the embezzled money.

The employer’s representative told the man to contact the defendant. He placed the phone in loud mode. The representative told the defendant it was shameful for someone in his position to counterfeit court receipts. “I heard him telling the representative that they were workmates and that he sent the man to solve the matter. The representative told him the matter would be referred to prosecutors,” explained the witness.

The witness added that she heard the defendant stating that he had children to look after. A report from the courts confirmed the receipts were counterfeited by altering the dates of issuance and data.

The courts’ concerned official explained that he examined the receipts’ numbers and failed to find them in the courts e-system. “Some receipts were filled-in in a strange way. I was not the one who issued them.”

During prosecution questioning, the defendant acknowledged written and audio correspondences between him and the employer regarding the receipts. “I Whatsapped him fake copies,” he confessed.