Reparation bid fails to head off jail term

A company’s efforts to get back $128,000 stolen by a trusted employee with a gambling problem have been sunk by a two year six month jail term.

The former employers had signed an agreement with Steve Amstad – including financially backing one of his new business ventures – to try to get the money back.

But the agreement was a leap of faith, said Judge Robert Spear in the Christchurch District Court. And 33-year-old Amstad had no background of significant success to point to.

Instead his record shows a series of dishonesty convictions and a 10-month jail term for a similar type of theft from an employer in 1996.

“You have essentially learnt nothing from your previous sentences,” said Judge Spear as he sentenced Amstad for the latest theft from his employer.

Defence counsel David Ruth said the agreement would mean nothing if a prison term was imposed. He said it was an appropriate case for a home detention sentence that would allow Amstad to keep working and repay the money.

He asked for Amstad to be given credit for his guilty plea, and for the reparation arrangement. “There was a gambling problem, as one might not be too surprised about. That is now in hand.”

Amstad committed the offence while he was working as a plant manager at a timber treatment plant. More than 100 times, he did private work at cut rates for clients of the firm, and pocketed $108,000.

The company conservatively estimated that the chemicals used for this discounted work had cost it $128,000.

Amstad has since married, and is acting as father to the woman’s children. She was in tears in court when home detention was refused and her husband was led away to begin his jail term.

Judge Spear told Amstad: “I suspect there is a streak of arrogance in you, that you think you are smarter or more cunning than others and you can get away with this type of offending.”

The jail term he imposed was beyond the usual two-year limit for home detention to be considered.

Amstad’s name was suppressed when he pleaded guilty, to allow the reparation agreement to be brought together, but the suppression was not renewed when he was jailed today.