Plus, Colorado accountant arrested in child sex sting, and a UNLV accounting grad student is accused of killing ex-girlfriend.
Essex accountant admits fraud against Cats production firm [BBC]
Scott Hiskey, a U.K. accountant who worked for Monumental Pictures, pleaded guilty on Sept. 17 to a charge of fraud by abuse of position after admitting to stealing thousands of pounds out of the company behind the film adaptation of the hit musical Cats.
Prosecutors say he took £230,116 from Monumental Pictures between April 2016 and October 2018, though his lawyers say the figure is closer to £93,000.
The money was taken in “false and unauthorized payments,” authorities said.
Ex-accountant gets 30 months for defrauding company [Law360]
Alison Thomas, a former London accountant who fraudulently transferred £144,500 worth of company funds to her personal bank account to fund vacations and fancy Champagne lunches, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Sept. 16.
Thomas was found guilty of fraud by abuse of position at Croydon Crown Court.
Between December 2011 and January 2018 she made regular transfers to her account from the small family-owned engineering firm in south London where she worked for seven years. Her role gave her access to and control of the company’s financial dealings.
Globetrotting accountant turned high-stakes punter steals $250k of his boss’s money and blows it all on meth, cocaine and casino gambling sprees [Daily Mail Australia]
Mina Saad, an accountant from Melbourne who stole more than $250,000 from his employer and spent it all on drugs, gambling, and lavish holidays, pleaded guilty to two charges of theft before he was sentenced to 12 months in prison on Sept. 9.
He began working at Polivac International Pty Ltd. as an accountant in September 2015. Just one month into the job, Saad, 32, started transferring money from Polivac and a second connecting company into his own bank account.
Through 43 fraudulent transactions, Saad accumulated more than $256,000 which was discovered by Polivac’s new accountant in March 2017.
Speaking to a psychologist, Saad said he carried out the crime because he had become involved with the wrong crowd and became invested in drugs and gambling.
Men arrested in child solicitation sting appear in court [The Aspen Times]
Accountant Brian Alvarez, one of nine people charged as a result of a sting operation in Garfield County, CO, which created online posts advertising sex with children, appeared in court Sept. 16 for his first hearing.
From Sept. 12 to 14, the nine individuals allegedly communicated with the undercover agents to negotiate prices for sex with children. When they showed up at the meeting place, allegedly to engage in the criminal offense, they were arrested.
North Las Vegas murder suspect a UNLV graduate student [Las Vegas Review-Journal]
Giovanni Ruiz, a graduate student studying accounting at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, was arrested on Sept. 10 and accused of killing his ex-girlfriend.
Ruiz, 21, faces one count of murder with a deadly weapon. He appeared in court on Sept. 21.
He is accused of shooting Paula Davis, 19, a UNLV student studying economics, who was found dead in her van at a North Las Vegas park during the evening of Sept. 6. Authorities said Ruiz had previously dated Davis.
The same day he was booked into the Las Vegas Detention Center, detectives found a semi-automatic handgun and a receipt for the weapon hidden inside a suitcase in Ruiz’s home, according to an arrest report. It was purchased two days before Davis was killed.
Ruiz also was working part time as an accountant, doing contract work for the government, according to his attorney Gabriel Grasso.
