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18-month prison sentence for helping to fleece BPO firm of $80m

Published:Saturday | December 7, 2019 | 2:49 PM

One of two women who admitted to operating a scheme that fleeced a St James business process outsourcing (BPO) company of approximately $80 million over the past six years is going to prison for 18 months.

The sentence was imposed on 54-year-old cosmetologist Maxine Walker in the St James Parish Court on Thursday.

Walker pleaded guilty on November 18 to two counts of money laundering and conspiracy to defraud, the police Corporate Communications Unit said in a statement.

Her accomplice, Neril Gordon, 38, a payroll clerk employed to the BPO firm, also pleaded guilty on November 18 to charges of money laundering and larceny as a servant.

Gordon is to be sentenced on January 9 next year.

The St James Police report that in November 2013 Walker and persons she recruited were fraudulently added to the company’s payroll by Gordon although they were not employed to the entity.

Investigators believe approximately $80 million was paid out to these persons, with Walker collecting “more than $10 million.”

Both women will also have to appear before the Supreme Court for a hearing pursuant to section 5 of the Proceeds of Crime Act, which allows for a pecuniary penalty to be imposed on persons who have benefited from criminal conduct.

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