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| Carpiz sisters, Jojie and Marly |
Two Filipino sisters who earlier pleaded guilty to two money laundering charges involving $1.2 million, avoided jail today at Eastern Court after they were sentenced to six months imprisonment, suspended for two years. This was after they each offered $200,000 in restitution.
Jojie Carpiz, 49 years old, and Marly Carpiz, 51, who are housewives, pleaded guilty last April
24 to money laundering charges involving deposits and withdrawals of crime
proceeds into their respective bank accounts.
Magistrate Edward Wong noted that even if the $200,000 each
that the sisters deposited with the court as restitution for the victim was just
a fraction of the total amount lost, the combined $400,000 restitution was substantial
and not a common occurrence.
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Besides, he said, it took two years to prosecute them, an
unreasonable delay.
At the same time, elderly members of the family dependent on
the two sisters for care will be abandoned if they were imprisoned.
The sentencing was put off last June 25 after after their
lawyer offered of $200,000 compensation in a check payable to the victim.
Principal Magistrate David Cheung, who handled the case
earlier, said the proper procedure is for compensation to be paid to the court,
not to the victim directly. “Otherwise, we will not know whether the payment is
received or not,” he had said.
He adjourned the case and raised the amount to $200,000 from
each of them, before releasing them on bail of $10,000 with conditions such as
not leaving Hong Kong and reporting to a nearby police station twice weekly.
Magistrate Cheung clarified that the compensation is
restitution that will be part of the mitigation before their sentence is rendered.
Jojie and Marly face a charge of conspiracy to deal with
property, knowing or having reasonable grounds to believe that the property
represented proceeds of an indictable offense, contrary to sections 25(1) and
(3) of the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance and sections 159A and 159C of
the Crimes Ordinance.
Police accused them of conspiring in dealing with $600,750
in Jojie’s account with the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited
between the 24th and 27 of December 2019
Marly faces an additional charge of dealing with property
known or having reasonable grounds to believe that the property represented the
proceeds of an indictable offence, contrary to sections 25(1) and 25(3) of the
Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance.
She was accused of handling tainted money amounting to
$600,000 in her HSBC account on Dec. 27, 2019.
