She had left the business before she was caught, but a Woodberry woman's fraudulent payments to herself of more than $280,000 from her workplace's bank account have finally caught up with her.
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Jodi Leigh Higginbottom, 45, pleaded guilty in Maitland Local Court on Wednesday to illegally obtaining $288,812 from her then-workplace, Global Acoustics at Thornton, over a period of almost six years.
Higginbottom, who was the business's office manager, made 95 illegal transactions from the company's bank account to several of her own, which were disguised as a legitimate business the company had previously dealt with.
She started in the role in June 2011, but it wasn't until about 12 months later that the fraudulent transfers started.
The amount Higginbottom obtained increased each year until 2016, starting at $20,680 in 2012, $25,300 in 2013, $35,200 in 2014, $41,800 in 2015 and $69,692 in 2016. She transferred a further $68,200 in 2017 and another $27,940 in 2018, before her employment was terminated on June 15 due to unrelated issues. The payments ranged from $440 up to $4400.
It was when Global Acoustics' expenditure information for the 2017/18 financial year was supplied to an accountant in January 2019 that the payments were first noticed.
Two months later, the new office manager asked the director if he knew anything about a series of unexplained payments on the business bank statements to the company Bayvia.
Each of the payments were within a 'multiple payment' to creditors, being multiple transfers of money submitted as one and appearing as a single line entry on bank statements with individual transfer details hidden.
Bayvia is a legitimate business that Global Acoustics had made payment to in the past, but when the director compared Bayvia's BSB and account number to the transfers of money, he realised the payments were actually being made into Higginbottom's personal bank accounts.
Police started investigating in March, and following inquiries, arrested Higginbottom on September 5.
She was charged with 25 counts of obtain benefit by deception, which were withdrawn by the prosecution, and instead she pleaded guilty seven counts of the offence.
Higginbottom will be sentenced on January 22, 2020.