Maid used boss’ ATM card to steal RM608,000
Friday March 23, 2012
AN INDONESIAN maid who stole nearly S$250,000 (RM608,000) from her employers over more than a year was jailed two years.
Atik Yuli Hastuti, 34, pleaded guilty to 40 charges of theft involving S$74,000 (RM180,000); she also admitted to five charges related to moving the stolen sums out of Singapore, stemming from her remitting S$16,993 (RM41,400) to her mother five times.
Another 103 charges were taken into account in sentencing her.
A district court heard that the maid, who had been working for the family in their Cluny Park Road home since September 2007, found a DBS ATM card belonging to her employer, Deborah Ann Henretta, 50, on the floor on Jan 1 last year.
It was with this card — and the personal identification number on a slip of paper tucked in the card holder — that she systematically milked the bank account repeatedly, withdrawing mainly S$1,000 (RM2,436) to S$2,000 (RM4,872) each time from various DBS ATMs.
Aside from the amount she remitted home, she also blew the money on luxury items and entertainment.
The maid has since made partial restitution of S$27,170 (RM66,200) — just 11% of the S$248,500 (RM605,500) she stole, including the total of S$31,970 (RM77,900) she sent home to her family.
Henretta’s husband Sean Andrew Murray, 55, who was in court, was visibly angry as he left the courtroom after the sentencing on Wednesday.
He said: “We invited her into our house. We gave her our love, our trust. We respected her dignity. We respected her privacy and she stole from us, over and over again.”
Deputy Public Prosecutor Lin Yuande said Murray was at DBS Bank’s Bukit Timah branch on Feb 22 when he discovered that S$2,000 (RM4,872) had been withdrawn from the joint account at an ATM in ION, Orchard Road.
He checked with his wife, Procter & Gamble’s group president for Asia, who confirmed that she did not make such a withdrawal.
It was not mentioned in court why the couple did not realize earlier that this bank account was being bled.
Murray declined further comment.
Investigations established that Atik was responsible.
DPP Lin said the maid had admitted to making the withdrawals from the couple’s account out of greed.
— The Straits Times / Asia News Network
Indonesian maid Atik Yuli Hastuti, who had worked for the family living in Cluny Park Road, pictured, since 2007, found her employer’s ATM card in January last year. She remitted some money to her family and blew the rest on luxury items and entertainment. (Straits Times Photo)
