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| Shatin court |
Financial hardship drove a Filipina cancer patient to hatch a web of eight offenses -- aimed at squeezing money out of her and a friend’s permanent resident documents – to which she pleaded guilty and would keep her in prison for the next 36 months.
According to her duty lawyer, Leila W. Fonte, 56 years old,
was a former domestic helper who married a local and got divorced years later, leaving
her barely able to support her family in both Hong Kong and the Philippines while working as a cleaner for $14,000 monthly and fighting
Stage 3 cervical cancer .
Fonte pleaded guilty to each of the eight charges after they
were read to her yesterday (April 29) before Magistrate Gary Chu at Shatin
Court.
Addressing her, Magistrate Chu said: “You have to understand
that the charges are serious.”
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| TAWAG NA! |
Her co-defendant in the case, friend and fellow Filipino Ricardo
de Austria, 54, is out on $1,000 bail for one of the charges and was scheduled
to appear on May 14.
After a one-third discount for her guilty charge, Chu
sentenced her to 15 months for the first charge – violating the Crimes
Ordinance and the Registration of Persons Ordinance.
The case arose after Fonte borrowed the Hong Kong ID card of
de Austria, who is also a permanent resident, and having it used in July 2020 by
her boyfriend, asylum-seeker Mohammed Shah, to get a job at a restaurant. Before
that, her lawyer said, Shah depended on her financially.
For the second to eighth charges, Chu sentenced Fonte to 12 months
in prison but discounted by one-third to eight months. Citing the totality principle,
he added to the first charge only three from each of these eight months,
for a total of 21 months.
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| PINDUTIN DITO |
Shah’s employment resulted in the second charge against
Fonte and de Austria -- dealing in proceeds of a crime, otherwise known as money
laundering-- because his salaries from Aug 6, 2020 to Sept. 7 , 2022 which
totaled $414,791.33 were paid into de Austria’s account at Hang Seng Bank.
The third charge arose from Fonte allowing another friend, domestic
helper Melyn Ibon, to use her HKID in 2016, contrary to the Registration of Persons
Ordinance.
Fonte repeated this offense in September 2021, resulting in
the fourth charge.
She committed the same offense for the third time in January
2022, for the fifth charge.
Between July 2018 and September 2021, Ibon used Fonte’s HKID
card to be able to work in a restaurant and earn $596,611.40, which went into
Fonte’s HSBC account, which in turn resulted in the sixth charge. In return,
Ibon paid Fonte $2,500 monthly.
Between June and August 2018, Ibon applied for a loan at
United Asia Finance Ltd. again using Fonte’s HKID, and received $10,103. This
was the basis for the seventh charge of conspiracy to defraud.
On Feb. 11, 2020, Fonte lied to an Immigration officer by saying that she worked in a restaurant named Hutong, even if it was Ibon who was actually working there, giving rise to the eighth charge.
Fonte was seen wiping her eyes before she was led out of the court.
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