Former EQC staffer put on community detention
A former EQC staffer convicted last year of misusing the commission’s cars, phone, and fuel cards has now been put on community detention for more dishonesty offending.
Epenesa Valavala, 25, of Aranui, committed the latest offending while on bail for the charges she faced last year.
Valavala had been regarded as an excellent employee at EQC, but her supervisors later found she had only a “veneer of respectability”, the judge said at her Christchurch District Court sentencing in December.
The court was told that the offending had cost her the job and had brought great shame on Valavala and her family.
Valavala had pleaded guilty last year to three charges of unlawfully converting EQC cars to her own use, obtaining by deception, and dishonestly using a document.
When she no longer had her own car available, she used three EQC pool cars for her own transport for months. One was left on a roadside when it got a flat tyre and Valavala replaced the wheel with a space saver. The third car was found at her home.
She used an EQC cellphone, running up bills totalling $291, when her own phone stopped working.
She bought $200 of petrol using EQC fuel cards.
Since the sentencing, she has been arrested on two more charges, and in March she admitted obtaining $5000 cash by deception and stealing a laptop computer. The offending took place from September to November, about the time she was awaiting sentence.
Valavala was remanded on bail for sentencing by Judge Brian Callaghan yesterday.
He imposed three months of community detention, 100 hours of community work, and ordered reparations totalling $5450.
Category: News
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Connect
Connect with us via: