Transactions described in the police summary of facts and a determination of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Disciplinary Tribunal included a large amount of cash withdrawals, ATM withdrawals, purchases at petrol stations, flights, accommodations, such as Airbnb bookings, groceries, and Uber Eats, Judge Jelas said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tribunal decision states \u2026 \u2018additionally, there was an enormous amount of money spent on Uber Eats, restaurants, cabs, groceries, and alcohol\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to conceal these purchases, Ms Fifita recorded these purchases in the company accounts as client-related expenses.\u201d<\/p>\n
K\u0101hui T\u016b Kaha told the court the organisation worked to support, in particular with housing and mental health, some of the community\u2019s most vulnerable, including providing services to more than 5700 people in the 2023-24 financial year.<\/p>\n
The offending damaged their reputation and would cause ongoing issues with insurance, the chief executive said in a report before sentencing.<\/p>\n
The report also recorded their \u201cdeep feelings of a breach of the trust\u201d they placed in Fifita, Judge Jelas said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had provided considerable career development and support during her time with K\u0101hui T\u016b Kaha, which included external mentoring.\u201d<\/p>\n
By 2024 Fifita was having increasingly frequent days off work, with colleagues \u201cexpressing concern for her and her family\u2019s welfare\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, their investigations have identified some of these leave days correlated with her travel to other cities and Australia \u2026 [with] expenses recorded by Airbnb and other tourist activities where the credit card was used.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ilaisaane Mosiana Fifita says her fraudulent spending had started small, before getting out of hand. Photo \/ Cameron Pitney<\/p>\n
When spoken to by police, the Auckland-based wife and mother acknowledged her wrongdoing and accepted there were no excuses for it, later pleading guilty at her first court appearance and writing a letter of apology to the organisation, Judge Jelas said.<\/p>\n
She had also paid more than $161,000 to K\u0101hui T\u016b Kaha, which included covering an insurance excess of $11,500, $20,000 toward emotional harm and agreed reparation.<\/p>\n
This was funded by the sale of the family home.<\/p>\n
Her unauthorised spending had started small, before getting out of hand, Fifita told the pre-sentence report writer.<\/p>\n
Using a starting point of three-and-a-half years\u2019 jail based on aggravating aspects of Fifita\u2019s actions, including the breach of trust, ongoing \u201csystemic\u201d nature of the offending and the impact on her former employer\u2019s reputation, Judge Jelas reduced that by 40%.<\/p>\n
This was based on her early acceptance of responsibility, remorse, offer to attend a restorative justice meeting, efforts at understanding her offending and selling the family home to pay reparations and emotional harm.<\/p>\n
That left a sentence of two years\u2019 and one month jail, just over the threshold for considering home detention, Judge Jelas said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut the sentencing exercise is not a complete mathematical exercise. Judges have discretion, and I consider the least restrictive outcome should be one of home detention.\u201d<\/p>\n
The consequence of Fifita\u2019s offending on her and her family would be far-reaching, particularly given the findings of the Institute of Chartered Accountants disciplinary report, Judge Jelas said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour ability to hold a position utilising your skills and expertise to date and in the future are much eroded.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Fifita was also clearly loved by her community and had \u201cmany positive qualities\u201d, Judge Jelas said.<\/p>\n
Fifita was sentenced to 12 months\u2019 home detention, and given six months\u2019 of conditions to follow after the 12-month sentence is complete.<\/p>\n
No reparation or emotional harm payments were ordered as \u201c[these have] already been paid\u201d, Judge Jelas said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Transactions described in the police summary of facts and a determination of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Disciplinary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[112586,10002,20784,15408,90543,7490,12765,1644,564,71,2678,42,2956,1334,43,90,1321,1072,84631,8262,12633,1346,40,38,41,39,274,7489,1299],"class_list":["post-175365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-112586","tag-10002","tag-alcohol","tag-almost","tag-controller","tag-eats","tag-employer","tag-financial","tag-food","tag-from","tag-fuel","tag-headlines","tag-holidays","tag-jail","tag-news","tag-on","tag-services","tag-social","tag-spared","tag-spending","tag-spent","tag-stole","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-uber","tag-who"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}