The evidence was circumstantial, but the fraud conviction stood. Cashing cheques totalling some $43,750 drawn on a government funded charity saw high profile Pasifika social activist Betty Leuina Sio convicted of dishonesty and fined $3000.
Subsequent email exchanges with co-offender Tapualii Raewyn Uitime served to highlight their modus operandi of creating false invoices, making out cheques to cash supposedly in payment of these invoices and then pocketing the proceeds.
Ms Sio was CEO of a charity formed in 1995 with the aim of serving Auckland’s Pacific Island community: Pacific Island Safety and Prevention Incorporated. She received national recognition for her work. She has been honoured with Samoan matai titles from each of her mother’s and father’s villages in Samoa.
At time of her offending in 2013, the Charity was getting government funding of some $2.5 million annually.
Ms Uitime worked with her at the Charity. The two were authorised signatories for cheques drawn on the Charity’s bank account.
The High Court was told of four cheques signed by both in August 2013; cheques made out to cash. The following day Ms Sio cashed two of the cheques at Sylvia Park branch of the BNZ, walking away with $43,750. Ms Uitime cashed the other two cheques at a Henderson bank, taking $36,250 cash. Next day they were at Sky City casino. Records show they lost nearly $2000 gambling.
At trial, Ms Sio claimed not to be present at the casino; someone else was using her card. The trial judge ruled it ‘more likely than not’ that she was present.
Following a Serious Fraud Office prosecution, both were convicted of dishonesty. Government funding dried up. The Charity closed in 2015.
Ms Sio appealed her conviction. There was no proof she was aware of the fraud, Ms Sio said. And money paid into her bank accounts and credit card account in the days after she cashed Charity cheques totalling $43,750 could be explained, she claimed.
Even allowing for slack accounting procedures common at the Charity, Ms Sio should be expected to question why she was signing and then given cash cheques enabling her to walk out of a bank with $43,750 cash, Justice Brewer suggested.
Also counting against Ms Sio’s claim to innocence was wording in a text exchange months later with Ms Uitime, setting up a pre-Christmas meeting at Sky City. Comments about a shortage of cash led to the response: ‘Another invoice maybe? LOL!!’ Ms Sio replied: ‘Yeah … Yayyy!!!’
Payments of cash into Ms Sio’s bank accounts and credit card account within hours and then days of cashing the cheques were strong evidence of a link between the fraud and the personal benefit obtained, Justice Brewer ruled.
Sio v. R. – High Court (1.07.24)
24.165