Ex-Employee Who Defrauded Company Now Claiming Unpaid Wages
April 5, 2016 | Fraud
An Auckland woman fired after stealing nearly $20,000 from her work has gone to the ERA complaining she wasn't paid her final wages.
Deborah Angela Lynn took her payment dispute with her former employer to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) who threw the claim out and ruled her last paycheck was properly being put toward the company's losses.
Manson Marine & Engineering employed Lynn for nearly a year but she left the company in 2010 after admitting she forged her boss' signature and cashed $14,448 worth of cheques into her own bank account.
She also pleaded guilty to charging $5000 worth of groceries to the company credit card.
In 2011 she was sentenced to home detention and also ordered to repay the money she'd cashed into her bank account, and a further $863.50 towards the grocery bill.
However this year Lynn took the company to the ERA after claiming she hadn't been paid out her last week's wages, or her holiday pay, totalling $1880.
Company bosses disputed that she was owed anything, pointing out that she was still in the throes of paying them back following her offending.
Emails provided to the ERA showed Lynn agreeing on several occasions that outstanding paychecks should be put toward her repayments, according to the authority's judgment.
"Ms Lynn ... agreed that she told Manson Marine to apply that amount towards repaying the money she had taken from them. That was also confirmed in an email she sent ... and in the information she conveyed to the Official Assignee," the judgment said.
Following an investigation meeting held between the two parties and the ERA, the authority determined Lynn wasn't owed any money.
We have helped hundreds of companies deal with workplace crime from embezzlement to office burglaries. Our team has the experience to know what to look for and how to get to the bottom of a business crime issue.
Whether you have suspicions of intellectual property theft by a departing staff member or notice discrepancies in your stock take, we help you uncover the facts. Our investigations deliver the proof you need to make informed decisions on what action to take.
Employment case law allows an employer to make a decision based on a full and fair investigation, and on the balance of the probabilities. This is where The Investigators Investigations comes in.
It is advisable to carry out all steps of the fair investigative process before you report a suspected staff member to police. Otherwise, if police decide not to prosecute, any later decision to ask a staff member to leave could be problematic.
FOR A CONFIDENTIAL DISCUSSION, CONTACT US NOW ON 0800 747 633 OR EMAIL US BY CLICKING HERE.
- Article originally on nzherald.co.nz.
