{"id":26282,"date":"2012-09-28T10:07:58","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T14:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=26282"},"modified":"2012-10-01T09:33:03","modified_gmt":"2012-10-01T13:33:03","slug":"lawyer-promises-to-repay-stolen-money-remains-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2012\/09\/lawyer-promises-to-repay-stolen-money-remains-in-prison","title":{"rendered":"Lawyer Promises to Repay Stolen Money, Remains in Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A magistrate yesterday refused to release a lawyer from prison to allow her to make restitution to a retired client from whom she stole almost $100,000.<\/p>\n

Sonia Timothy Serrette, 42, has been in prison since August 15 after Deputy Chief Magistrate Carolita Bethell convicted her of stealing by reason of service.<\/p>\n

At Thursday’s sentencing hearing, Geoffrey Farquharson said Serrette was prepared to meet her obligations to Fiordelisa Bain, a retired teacher from whom she stole $96,967.50 in October 2009.<\/p>\n

Serrette cried quietly as her lawyer said that Serrette’s young children were out of school as a consequence of her remand. Her husband, Stephen, sat behind her and whispered to her.<\/p>\n

Farquharson asked the court to make a compensation order instead of sentencing Serrette to prison, as she was the family’s sole breadwinner.<\/p>\n

Bethell said she didn’t realize that Serrette was still allowed to practice. The magistrate said, “This is not the only matter.”<\/p>\n

Serrette insisted that she was still able to make a living as a lawyer.<\/p>\n

Magistrate Bethell said the court case came about because of Serrette’s failure to repay Bain.<\/p>\n

Bethell said if Serrette came up with a substantial sum of money and Bain was prepared to accept the offer, the court would “take it from there.”<\/p>\n

She said, “I don’t want the defendant to be incarcerated and this old woman to be out almost $100,000.”<\/p>\n

However, she flatly rejected a suggestion that the court release Serrette from prison to allow her to get the money together.<\/p>\n

Bethell said, “No, the defendant had three years.”<\/p>\n

Serrette returns to court on October 10 to update the court on her repayment efforts.<\/p>\n

By Artesia Davis<\/span><\/em>
\nThe Nassau Guardian<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A magistrate yesterday refused to release a lawyer from prison to allow her to make restitution to a retired client from whom she stole almost $100,000. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[151,123],"class_list":["post-26282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-court","tag-lawyers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}