By The SUN
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| One of Mrs Liang's necklaces that Nones had pawned for $56,000 |
The Court of Appeal yesterday added 17 months to the sentence of a Filipino domestic helper who was jailed for four years and 11 months in September last year for stealing jewelry and gold bars worth more than HK$14.6 million from her former employer, business executive David Liang.
Carmelita Galay Nones, 47, will now serve a total of six years and four months in jail after justices Kevin Zervos, Maggie Poon and Anthea Pang granted the Department of Justice’s application for a tougher sentence on her.
The appeal court ruled that High Court judge Andrew Bruce erred in principle by giving too much weight to Nones’ guilty plea and unverified claim that she had stolen to pay for her mother’s medical expenses, while failing to consider the severity of the crime.
Nones was originally sent to jail by Judge Bruce for four years and 11 months, after admitting six counts of theft on Sept. 7 last year.
Under Hong Kong’s laws, theft carries a maximum of 10 years in jail.
Nones was working at the Deepwater Bay residence of Liang when she stole an assortment of watches, jewelry and gold bars worth more than $14.6 million from him and his wife between Jun 17, 2018 and Sept 4, 2019.
About 200 valuable items were stolen from the couple, including 38 diamond-studded necklaces, 23 bangles, 40 pairs of earrings, 16 bracelets, two gold bars, four luxury watches, 31 gold coins, 25 rings, as well as cash.
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| A diamond-studded necklace pawned by Nones for more than $50k |
Nones had pawned some of the stolen goods with the help of her niece Maricris Galay Nones, 32, and cousin Cristina Noble Alagna, 51. Both women were sentenced to one year and four months in jail.
The rest of the items worth some $4 million which she entrusted to her sister, Marina G. Biala, 49,were turned over to the police. A charge of theft against Biala was subsequently dropped.
The thefts came to light in July 2019 when police noticed suspicious transactions during a regular pawnshop inspection.
During mitigation, Nones’ counsel, Oliver Davies told the court that while Nones admitted stealing from the Liangs expensive items worth a total of $14,603,200, she only made roughly $1.1 million pawning the items.
Most of the stolen jewelry was recovered, either because Mrs Liang redeemed them from the pawnshops for a total of $1.451 million, or recovered from Nones’ other co-accused.
Davies submitted that the Liang’s net loss from Carmelita’s theft was $1.9 million.
He also said Nones had used all the money she made pawning the stolen jewelry to pay for her mother’s dialysis treatment. Her mother reportedly passed away in December 2020.
The lower court was presented with an “impact statement” from Mrs Liang, in which she said she had felt violated by the theft of her personal properties.
Mrs Liang also said her former helper had used the ill-gotten money to build houses and buy luxury goods in her hometown of La Union in the Philippines, and attached some 200 photos to support her claim.
Davies, however, said there was no evidence to show that the properties allegedly bought by Nones were registered in her name. He did admit than one of the houses belonged to her boyfriend, Eldon.
In sentencing, Judge Bruce said he was “more than prepared” to accept that there was a violation of Mrs Liang’s privacy, but disregarded the claim about Nones having used the proceeds from her crime to buy properties.
While saying that the crime involved a serious breach of trust on the part of Nones, the judge accepted that the defendant had been motivated by the “terrible burden” of having to care for her sick mother in the Philippines.
The appeal judges disregarded this reasoning, saying there was no evidence Nones had paid for her mother’s medical expenses using the proceeds from her crime.
Instead, the judges accepted Mrs Liang’s impact report that Nones had used the ill-gotten money to fund a lavish lifestyle back in the Philippines.
Judge Zervos added that the trial judge appeared to have overlooked an aggravating factor in the offense – Nones’ attempt to conceal her involvement in the crimes by asking her relatives to pawn or keep some of the items she had stolen.
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| Nones in a Valentine's Day gathering before her arrest |
Following Nones’ sentencing, sources close to Mrs Liang told The SUN that the employer had kept most of the jewelry in a safe inside her bedroom, and was clueless as to how Carmelita managed to learn the combination to open the safe and steal the items.
Mrs Liang also had more than the usual number of jewelry in her safe during the relevant times because she had taken out some of the more expensive pieces from a safety deposit box in a bank to use for her son’s wedding.
The source also said the employer had asked investigators in the Philippines to check on Nones’ lifestyle, and received photos showing the helper had built two lavish houses in her hometown, and owned a number of vehicles.
Despite this effort, Mrs Liang failed to recover any of her losses from Nones’ theft.
