Ten
months imprisonment of Jacob Andrew Wright for the theft of $5900 from a
Dunedin property management company was confirmed by the High Court. A history of convictions for dishonesty
offences justified a jail term.
The High Court was told Wright had been
convicted a decade previously on 11 charges of theft as a servant and 19
charges of using a document for pecuniary advantage. He served a period of home detention.
He was refused home detention for thefts
from his employer in 2014, being sentenced to ten months imprisonment. The court was told Wright had been working
for a property management company for some eight years, being promoted to
operations manager in 2013. He oversaw management
of over 600 properties and supervised eight staff. The thefts, over an eleven month period, included
taking money directly from his employer’s company account and the creation of
fictitious tenancy agreements with company money used to lodge bonds with the
Ministry of Housing and then claiming a bond refund in his own name. Over
several months his employer discovered different instances of Wright’s
dishonesty and each time was told there was no further offending, only for his
employer to later find further undisclosed thefts.
The court was told the amount taken had
been repaid. The employer said the costs
of investigating the offending and dealing with the consequences had been some
$19,000.
Wright
v. Police – High Court (1.12.15)
16.015