Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

An ac­coun­tant, who de­fraud­ed the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of al­most $400,000, has re­ceived a $50,000 fine. 

Ran­dall Sa­hadeo re­ceived the sen­tence from High Court Judge Nali­ni Singh on Mon­day af­ter plead­ing guilty to lar­ce­ny and 13 mon­ey laun­der­ing charges. 

In her writ­ten de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Singh said a prison sen­tence was in­ap­pro­pri­ate based on the cir­cum­stances of the case in­clud­ing Sa­hadeo tak­ing steps to re­pay the mon­ey to the as­so­ci­a­tion be­fore the end of his crim­i­nal pro­ceed­ings. 

Jus­tice Singh said: “Hav­ing re­gard to the na­ture of the of­fences, the struc­tured arrange­ments for resti­tu­tion, and the cir­cum­stances of the of­fend­er al­ready iden­ti­fied, the Court is sat­is­fied that a non-cus­to­di­al sen­tence in the form of a fi­nan­cial penal­ty prop­er­ly re­flects the over­all crim­i­nal­i­ty of the con­duct while re­main­ing just and pro­por­tion­ate.” 

Jus­tice Singh al­so sug­gest­ed that a high­er fine may re­sult in Sa­hadeo be­ing un­able to ad­here to his re­pay­ment plan. 

“A com­bined fine of $50,000, when con­sid­ered along­side the on­go­ing resti­tu­tion oblig­a­tions and the con­se­quences al­ready suf­fered by the of­fend­er, con­sti­tutes a sub­stan­tial and pro­por­tion­ate penal­ty that sat­is­fies the pur­pos­es of pun­ish­ment, de­nun­ci­a­tion, and de­ter­rence,” she said. 

Sa­hadeo was ac­cused of un­law­ful­ly trans­fer­ring $385,295.32 from the as­so­ci­a­tion’s bank ac­count to a com­pa­ny owned by him while serv­ing as the as­so­ci­a­tion’s ac­coun­tant be­tween De­cem­ber 2022 and Ju­ly 2023. 

The mon­ey was paid to Sa­hadeo’s com­pa­ny by eight cheques. 

When Sa­hadeo was ar­rest­ed by po­lice at his Mara­bel­la home in Oc­to­ber 2023, he ad­mit­ted to his wrong­do­ing. 

Al­though he was slapped with 14 crim­i­nal charges, the as­so­ci­a­tion still pur­sued a civ­il law­suit to re­coup the funds.

Sa­hadeo con­ced­ed and agreed to re­pay the mon­ey un­der a pay­ment plan.  

In sen­tenc­ing Sa­hadeo, Jus­tice Singh not­ed that he claimed that he com­mit­ted the fraud be­cause he in­curred large debts to money­len­ders to fi­nance his moth­er’s med­ical ex­pens­es. 

“While those cir­cum­stances do not ex­cuse the con­duct, they pro­vide con­text for the cir­cum­stances in which the of­fend­er came to com­mit these of­fences and as­sist the Court in un­der­stand­ing the sit­u­a­tion in which the wrong­do­ing arose,” Jus­tice Singh said. 

Ex­plain­ing her de­ci­sion to not im­pose a prison sen­tence, Jus­tice Singh said: “The Court is sat­is­fied that al­though the of­fend­ing is se­ri­ous and in­volves a clear breach of trust, the over­all grav­i­ty of the con­duct does not reach the lev­el which or­di­nar­i­ly re­quires the fix­ing of a cus­to­di­al start­ing point.” 

Jus­tice Singh al­so found that con­fis­ca­tion pro­ceed­ings un­der the Pro­ceeds of Crime Act, which are done in con­junc­tion with mon­ey laun­der­ing cas­es, were un­nec­es­sary as Sa­hadeo had al­ready be­gun to re­pay the mon­ey he stole. 

“The statu­to­ry ob­jec­tive of con­fis­ca­tion is to de­prive an of­fend­er of the ben­e­fit of crim­i­nal con­duct,” she said. 

“Here, the Court is sat­is­fied that the ex­ist­ing civ­il judg­ment and the on­go­ing re­pay­ment struc­ture are al­ready op­er­at­ing in a man­ner which ma­te­ri­al­ly ad­dressed that prac­ti­cal ob­jec­tive,” she added. 

Sa­hadeo was rep­re­sent­ed by Michelle Gon­za­les, while Maria Lyons-Ed­wards, Cassie Bis­ram and Khi Cam­bridge rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).