By Daisy CL Mandap
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| Nones, who has been in prison for 2 years, could be set free in 15 months, says her lawyer |
There was muted elation at the High Court earlier today,
Sept 7, as a lower-than-expected sentence was imposed on Carmelita G. Nones,
who admitted stealing at least $14.6 million worth of jewelry from her former
employers, and her two co-accused.
Nones, 47, married with one son, was ordered jailed for four years and 11 months
by Judge Andrew Bruce, SC, after she pleaded guilty to six counts of theft.
Her niece, Maricris G. Nones, 32; and cousin, Cristina G.
Alagna, 50, were each jailed for one year and four months for pawning the stolen
valuables, and should be freed soon after having been detained for the same
length of time.
But their joy at having been meted lenient sentences that
took even lead defense lawyer Oliver Davies by surprise was tempered by a
tragedy that left Carmelita sobbing loudly at the dock before the hearing
started.
One of her relatives who was in court relayed the
information that Carmelita’s husband in the Philippines passed away yesterday,
after being stricken with Covid-19.
The relative said after the hearing that Carmelita’s son, as
well as her father, have also tested positive for coronavirus, and have been
put under isolation in their house in the northern province of La Union.
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| Carmelita also stole and pawned gold coins and gold bars |
The bittersweet end to Carmelita’s wrongdoings came two years
after she was arrested on Sept 4, 2019, for the biggest theft ever committed by
a foreign domestic worker in Hong Kong.
Her employers, business executive David Liang and his wife, Helen Frances, had been unaware until then
that their domestic worker of six years had been slowly stealing jewelry and
other valuables in their standalone house in Deep Water Bay for over a year.
To help her dispose of the stolen loot, Carmelita told her niece
Maricris, who is single and had worked as a FDH in Hong Kong since 2015; and cousin Cristina, who is married and had worked here since 1996; to pawn the valuables in various pawnshops. But
the bulk she hocked herself.
Apart from the pawned items, Carmelita, who was paid the minimum wage of $4,520, also hoarded many
other pieces, enough to fill a bag with $4.8 million worth of jewelry which she
had entrusted to her sister, Marina Biala
Biala has separately pleaded not guilty to a charge of
handling stolen goods over this, and will undergo trial at the District Court
later this month.
It took the police to uncover the theft during a spot
inspection of pawnshop records sometime in July 2019. They noticed the numerous pawnshop receipts in Carmelita's name and decided to investigate.
Armed with copies of the pawnshop tickets, the police
visited the Liang couple in their house on Sept 4, 2019. After the couple
confirmed ownership of the pawned properties, Carmelita's room was searched and more stolen items were found. She was arrested.
After her arrest, Maricris and Cristina went to see Mrs
Liang and admitted pawning items belonging to the employer at Carmelita’s
behest. Marina
also came forward to turn over the bag containing Carmelita’s $4.8 million loot.
According to Judge Bruce, the total value of the jewelry
that Carmelita had stolen, and could be traced, amounted to $14,603,200.
The amount did not include jewelry that could no longer be
recovered and whose value could not be ascertained, including a gold ring with
diamonds, three bangles, three pairs of earrings, one necklace, two rings and a
pendant.
Apart from the bag of jewelry that Marina turned over, all the other items worth
more than $10 million were pawned by the three accused for just $946,100, or less
than 10% of their value.
Rough estimates put the net loss to the Liang couple to at least $1.655 million, much of it spent redeeming the stolen valuables from the
pawnshops. But it also included the cost of unrecovered items, including a matching pair of Piaget watches
which Carmelita pawned for just $17,000 and could no longer be redeemed.
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| Her own relatives say Carmelita had this 4-storey house built in La Union |
In a phone interview shortly after the case went to court,
Mrs Liang told The SUN that she was clueless as to how Carmelita had managed to
steal her valuables, which were kept in a safe at her home.
It was just unfortunate that she decided to take out many of
the valuable items from a safety deposit box because her son was getting
married at the time, Mrs Liang said.
Asked how Carmelita could have managed to get the
combination for the safe in their house, Mrs Liang said, “I don’t know.”
She was, however, upset that the pawnshops where her stolen
jewelry pieces were taken were not held to account. Nor was Carmelita’s
boyfriend who was known to many of her friends and family members in Hong Kong, questioned about his possible involvement in
the large-scale thefts.
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| Some of the stolen jewelry recovered from a pawnshop |
In sentencing Carmelita, Judge Bruce said that the maximum penalty for thefts involving properties worth between $5million to $15million is 5-10 years in prison.
He then imposed sentences of between a year to 5 years and six months for each of the charges against Carmelita, and ordered that they run consecutively as they were not continuing offences.
But if he added them all up, it would result to a prison term of 21 years, which the judge said was unfair.
Citing the totality principle, he used 8 years as a starting point, then gave a 33% discount for her guilty plea, and a further 5% for her clean record and her motivation for stealing.
Arguing in mitigation, Davies said Carmelita had used the
money she earned from pawning her employer’s valuables to pay off loans and
the medical bills of her mother who was diabetic and had renal failure for
which she had to undergo dialysis.
Bruce noted a statement submitted by Mrs Liang to court
showing houses and cars allegedly bought by Carmelita from the proceeds of her
crime, but over which he said “I have no way of ascertaining the truth.”
The judge did say he was taking into account the employer’s claim of feeling violated and betrayed by someone she had trusted.
“They have the effect of aggravating the sentence, I accept
it as true,” said Bruce. “I will take them into account to aggravate the
penalty.”
However, he also said Hong Kong
has no law that recognizes the effect of such acts of violations on the victim.
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| One of the more expensive jewelry pieces pawned by Carmelita |
As for the two other defendants, the judge used a starting
point of two years and three months, even after pointing out at the start that the maximum penalty for handling stolen goods was 14 years.
After taking into consideration their guilty pleas,
their act of going to Mrs Liang and telling her about the other stolen items
that they had pawned, and their having been “shamelessly used” by Carmelita for
her illegal deeds, he gave them a 40% discount on the sentence.
Davies said afterwards the two will likely stay in prison
for about a month before they’re sent back to the Philippines. Carmelita would likely
be detained for a further 15 months before she, too, is repatriated.
He said it is not likely the three will be allowed to work
in Hong Kong again.
