A 35-year-old moth­er of two, who ad­mit­ted to us­ing fraud­u­lent cheques and a forged dri­ver’s per­mit to pur­chase home ap­pli­ances in 2007, has been placed on bond and or­dered to pay com­pen­sa­tion.

Aman­da Chat­ter­goon re­ceived the sen­tence from High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds, af­ter she ac­cept­ed a plea agree­ment with the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) dur­ing a hy­brid hear­ing at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

Un­der the terms of the agree­ment, Chat­ter­goon agreed to plead guilty to five fraud charges, based on the un­der­stand­ing that the DPP’s Of­fice would rec­om­mend the non-cus­to­di­al sen­tence even­tu­al­ly up­held by Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds.

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds ini­tial­ly ex­pressed con­cern over the sen­tence agreed to by the par­ties, as she not­ed she did not need to ac­cept it if she felt it was over­ly le­nient based on the cir­cum­stances of the case.

“These are se­ri­ous of­fences and in on­ly rare cas­es should they not de­serve a cus­to­di­al term,” Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds said, as she not­ed fraud is far too preva­lent in T&T.

“Fraud can­not be a built-in over­head for small busi­ness­es,” she added, as she not­ed prison sen­tences for fraud are in­tend­ed to act as a de­ter­rent.

De­spite her con­cerns over the sen­tence, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds still de­cid­ed to up­hold it, as she said in­ter­fer­ence may lead to a loss of trust and con­fi­dence in the plea-bar­gain­ing process, which she ad­mit­ted was a vi­tal tool in ad­dress­ing is­sues with­in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.

Ac­cord­ing to ev­i­dence in the case, Chat­ter­goon was al­leged to have com­mit­ted the of­fences in Au­gust 2007. She al­leged­ly ap­proached the own­er of an elec­tron­ic store in San Juan and pur­chased three tele­vi­sions and a re­frig­er­a­tor to­geth­er val­ued at $46,000 us­ing a forged cheque.

The store own­er de­liv­ered the items to the Port-of-Spain Port, as Chat­ter­goon in­di­cat­ed she want­ed to ship them to To­ba­go.

Chat­ter­goon was ar­rest­ed by Fraud Squad in­ves­ti­ga­tors af­ter she ap­proached the own­er the fol­low­ing day to pur­chase an­oth­er batch of elec­tron­ics us­ing an­oth­er forged $46,000 cheque from a bank branch that did not ex­ist.

When she was de­tained, Chat­ter­goon claimed she was hired by a man to con­duct the trans­ac­tions us­ing the forged doc­u­ments he pro­vid­ed af­ter re­spond­ing to a clas­si­fied ad­ver­tise­ment.

She was charged with ob­tain­ing prop­er­ty with a forged doc­u­ment, en­deav­our­ing to ob­tain prop­er­ty with a forged doc­u­ment and three charges for ut­ter­ing forged doc­u­ments.

In sen­tenc­ing Chat­ter­goon, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds said al­though she did not pro­duce the forged doc­u­ments, she could be held li­able in law as the per­son who did so.

“The per­son who ut­ters the forged doc­u­ments is no less than the ones who pro­duced it,” she said.

She point­ed out that she took a ma­jor risk in com­mit­ting the fraud, as she was preg­nant at the time and would have had to give up her ba­by days af­ter giv­ing birth if she was sen­tenced to a prison term short­ly af­ter be­ing charged.

“I don’t think you are aware of how great a risk you took,” she said.

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds placed Chat­ter­goon on a $50,000 bond to keep the peace for three years. In the event she com­mits an of­fence while bond­ed, she will face two years in prison. She was al­so or­dered to pay $46,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to the store own­er.

Chat­ter­goon agreed to pay $23,000 forth­with and the re­main­der in $3,000 month­ly in­stal­ments.

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds said the com­pen­sa­tion will be held by the Ju­di­cia­ry, as pros­e­cu­tors were un­able to con­tact the vic­tim, who has since mi­grat­ed.

Chat­ter­goon was rep­re­sent­ed Thalia Fran­cis-Brooks, while Ravi­ta Per­sad-Ma­haraj and Am­bay Ramkellawan rep­re­sent­ed the DPP’s Of­fice.