Coastal woman gets 7 years for defrauding law firm

A FORMER employee of a well-established Swakopmund law firm was yesterday found guilty of fraud by the Regional Court and sentenced to six years in prison.

Melanie Hartmann (39), who worked for DF Malherbe & Partners for seven years, on Monday pleaded guilty to defrauding the company of N$411 190.19 between February 2003 and February 2004. Magistrate Christie Liebenberg said when sentencing her that the accused could not escape direct imprisonment.Despite a plea from her legal representative, Wouter Rossouw, for a five-year sentence, with half to be suspended, the Magistrate said a partly suspended sentence would be unsuitable.”The accused must be punished for the wrong she has done,” he said.Public prosecutor Natasha Louwrens argued on Monday that crime involving dishonesty had become prevalent in the country.She said in the one year during which had Hartmann committed fraud, she had had more than enough time to reflect on what she was doing, but chose to persist with dishonest activities.Hartmann, who managed a property development account at the law firm, took eight cheques from one client’s account.The person was also her live-in boyfriend.She deposited five of the cheques into a bank account she and her boyfriend had opened, called ‘The American Dream’.Her boyfriend did not have signing rights.She deposited one cheque in her personal bank account, and cashed two cheques.Rossouw focused on Hartmann’s unhappy and unstable childhood and adult life, involving three children and two broken marriages.He said because Hartmann had a “severe gambling problem that borders on addiction”, she gambled all the money away and was not in a position to repay any of it.”My client has the utmost remorse for her actions and therefore returned to Namibia out of her own free will, after leaving the country in March, to face the consequences of her actions.”He said she had insisted on determining the extent of her fraud by indicating the exact transactions to her former employer.Magistrate Liebenberg said that the seriousness of the crime and the interest of society outweighed Hartmann’s personal circumstances and the fact that she was a first-time offender.”The fact that you did not come to your senses timeously and your inability to repay are aggravating circumstances that carried weight in deciding on a sentence.”Hartmann first appeared in the Magistrate’s Court last Wednesday after handing herself over to the Police.Magistrate Christie Liebenberg said when sentencing her that the accused could not escape direct imprisonment.Despite a plea from her legal representative, Wouter Rossouw, for a five-year sentence, with half to be suspended, the Magistrate said a partly suspended sentence would be unsuitable.”The accused must be punished for the wrong she has done,” he said.Public prosecutor Natasha Louwrens argued on Monday that crime involving dishonesty had become prevalent in the country.She said in the one year during which had Hartmann committed fraud, she had had more than enough time to reflect on what she was doing, but chose to persist with dishonest activities.Hartmann, who managed a property development account at the law firm, took eight cheques from one client’s account.The person was also her live-in boyfriend.She deposited five of the cheques into a bank account she and her boyfriend had opened, called ‘The American Dream’.Her boyfriend did not have signing rights.She deposited one cheque in her personal bank account, and cashed two cheques.Rossouw focused on Hartmann’s unhappy and unstable childhood and adult life, involving three children and two broken marriages.He said because Hartmann had a “severe gambling problem that borders on addiction”, she gambled all the money away and was not in a position to repay any of it.”My client has the utmost remorse for her actions and therefore returned to Namibia out of her own free will, after leaving the country in March, to face the consequences of her actions.”He said she had insisted on determining the extent of her fraud by indicating the exact transactions to her former employer.Magistrate Liebenberg said that the seriousness of the crime and the interest of society outweighed Hartmann’s personal circumstances and the fact that she was a first-time offender.”The fact that you did not come to your senses timeously and your inability to repay are aggravating circumstances that carried weight in deciding on a sentence.”Hartmann first appeared in the Magistrate’s Court last Wednesday after handing herself over to the Police.