Litia Rokele Vuniduvu’s conviction for fraud after stealing over $360,000 from Ports of Auckland in a false invoicing scam was upheld by the Court of Appeal. She was guilty of dishonestly ‘using’ a document, even when most of the fifty false invoices in what was a three-year long scam were concocted by her lover, Ports of Auckland senior ICT manager Paul Bainbridge.
Bainbridge pleaded guilty when charged. Vuniduvu was found guilty after a District Court trial and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. She claimed there was no dishonesty. She had done the work and was entitled to payment, she said. The jury did not believe her. There was evidence she had not declared the supposed income for tax.
On appeal, Vuniduvu said facts of the case did not support a Crimes Act conviction for ‘dishonestly using a document.’ She was not the principal offender, she said. It was Bainbridge who prepared and processed the false invoices. Bainbridge alone ‘used’ the documents to engineer a fraud, she said.
Vuniduvu’s actions in providing information to Bainbridge necessary to compile the false invoices and her actions in personally creating and submitting some of the invoices amounted to ‘using’ a document to perpetrate a fraud, the Court of Appeal ruled.
Bainbridge was sentenced in 2017 to three years and one month’s imprisonment for his part in the fraud. By the time of her appeal against conviction, Vuniduvu had served her sentence. Failing to overturn her conviction for fraud affects her ability to remain in New Zealand as an immigrant.
Vuniduvu v. R – Court of Appeal (7.09.22)
22.159