The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

THE Court of Appeal has docked 40 percent of former College of the Bahamas employee Chimeka Gibbs’ 15-year sentence for stealing over $700,000 from the institution over a seven-year period.

The appellate court said Gibbs will now serve nine years in prison for stealing $704,580 from the college, now the University of the Bahamas, between March 2008 and October 2015.

This, the appellate judges said, would bring Gibbs’ sentence more in line with the “principle of totality” as well as the 10-year maximum provided for in the Penal Code for any count of stealing.

The appellate judges also set aside a judge’s order for Gibbs to serve an additional five-year sentence if she fails to pay back the $704,580 she stole via annual installments of $140,916 within the next five years.

The appellate judges said Justice Grant-Thompson’s restitution order remains in place. However, it will now be a “judgement debt” owed by her to the University of the Bahamas, and enforceable as any judgement debt.

Doing so officially neutralised the possibility of Gibbs potentially serving 20 years in prison (the original 15-year sentence plus the five years in default).

In February 2018, a nine-member jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict on all 24 criminal counts - 16 counts of falsification of accounts and eight of stealing by reason of employment.

Prior to convicting Gibbs, who, according to court documents served as both a senior clerk and a human resources assistant at the former college, the jury was told the accused falsified numerous COB direct deposit files, the result of which purported to show she was entitled to over $200,000 in salary payments.

Gibbs accomplished the latter feat by manipulating the information contained on certain documents to be submitted to the Bank of the Bahamas on behalf of COB.

As a result, Gibbs received up to $13,000 over and above her monthly net salary of $2,395 between 2008 and 2015. In total, Gibbs paid herself $640,000 extra between those seven years to various bank accounts at Commonwealth Bank, Scotiabank FirstCaribbean International Bank and the Royal Bank of Canada. And according to the Crown, the amount she stole increased every year.

In April of that year, Justice Grant-Thompson sentenced her to six years in prison on counts one, four, seven and 10, and nine years on counts 13, 16, 19 and 22; those were the stealing by reason of employment charges.

Justice Grant-Thompson also sentenced Gibbs to nine years in prison on the remaining 16 counts of falsification of accounts - six years for eight counts and three years for another eight counts, that were also ordered to run consecutively. That made for a total of nine years on those counts.

However, Justice Grant-Thompson ordered that the sentences relative to the separate charges are ultimately to run concurrently, making for 15 years in total.

Gibbs was also ordered to pay back the money she stole from COB within the next five years, via annual instalments of $140,916.

Failure to do so would result in an additional year in prison, Justice Grant-Thompson said, meaning Gibbs could have ended up serving 20 years behind bars if she defaults.

The judge also ordered that the $66,369.26 on Gibbs’ various bank accounts be forfeited to the Public Treasury.

Earlier this month, Gibbs’ attorney Murrio Ducille submitted the sentence passed was “unduly severe”. In his view, his client was convicted on inadmissible evidence that bore no relation to the 24 charges she was ultimately convicted on.

The appellate judges agreed with Mr Ducille’s submission in that regard, noting that not only was the sentence unduly severe, but it was “beyond the jurisdiction of the judge”.

“Firstly, if (Gibbs) repaid the monies she would have served nine years in prison in circumstances where she would have paid full restitution,” the appellate judges said. “Secondly, as she will be in prison during the five years in question it is unclear to us the basis upon which it would have been expected that she could repay the monies.

“In effect it would have been 20 years imprisonment which would have been twice the maximum period for any one offence.”

The judges further noted that even if it was proper to order compensation to the Public Treasury as requested by the Crown, the penalty for nonpayment could not exceed an additional three months.

“In the court’s view this was not a case requiring the imposition of consecutive sentences but rather may have warranted sentences near the 10-year maximum provided for in the Penal Code,” the judge’s ruling said. “A total sentence of 15 years or 20 years as the case may be is not compatible with the principle of totality having regard to the fact that the maximum imposed by the Penal Code for any count of stealing was 10 years.

“The court is satisfied that (Gibbs’) sentences should all run concurrently.”

Court of Appeal President Sir Hartman Longley and fellow Justices Sir Michael Barnett and Milton Evans presided over the appeal.

Al-Leecia Delancy represented the Crown.