Joyti De-Laurey was found guilty this week of stealing £4.5 million from her bosses in an elaborate scam, but she fought dirty to the end, writes Simon Bowers.
Two years ago Joyti De-Laurey signed a confession detailing how she had used her trusted position as a secretary at the investment bank Goldman Sachs to plunder the private bank accounts of three bosses, helping herself to almost £4.5 (€6.7) million.
Six months later, after stress treatment at the Priory private clinic, she sacked her legal team and tore up the confession. It was a decision that sparked a scandal-packed three-month trial during which De-Laurey attempted to drag the reputations of her former bosses through the mud, with claims ranging from cheque forgery to extramarital affairs.
This week a jury at Southwark crown court brushed aside De-Laurey's central claim that transfers to her account had been legitimate payments for helping three Goldman bosses run their private lives. She was found guilty on 20 counts of theft and forging cheques and other transfer instructions.
De-Laurey will be sentenced on June 14th along with her husband, Anthony, a chauffeur, and her mother, Devi Schahhou, a GP, who were convicted on Tuesday of money-laundering offences.
The main victim of the elaborate scam, Scott Mead, said afterwards: "Joyti De-Laurey has mounted a vindictive and implausible defence in which she and her team of lawyers attempted to put the victims on trial . . . It was a ludicrous and malicious fantasy from start to finish." De-Laurey, described in court by Mead as the "Picasso of con artists", used the stolen money to fund an extravagant lifestyle, buying a fleet of luxury cars, properties in Britain and Cyprus, and Cartier jewellery worth £300,000 (€448,000). She also paid off debts from a failed sandwich bar business and her mother's mortgage.
Mead was one of the most revered figures in the City before his retirement last year. As chief adviser to Vodafone, he led a string of takeover deals that transformed the Newbury-based firm into the world's biggest telecoms company. De-Laurey siphoned £3.3 (€4.9) million out of his private investment account in New York, forging his signature or adding transfer instructions to papers he had signed. She stole up to £2 (€3) million at a time from the account in less than five months.
Mead stumbled on the scam two years ago while making a donation to his former college. It emerged that his secretary, who was preparing to quit her job and retire to Cyprus, had been stealing hundreds of thousands of pounds from Goldman bosses for about 18 months - some time before she came to work for Mead.
Presented with the evidence, De-Laurey asked for a private meeting with Mead at which, according to the banker, she said: "I would hate for this to get dirty". The suggestion of a blackmail attempt has hovered over proceedings ever since, as it became clear that the former secretary intended to reveal intimate details of Mead's private and professional life.
De-Laurey was appointed by Mead on the recommendation of her former boss, Jennifer Moses, who assured him she was trustworthy. In fact, she had been stealing from Moses and her husband Ron Beller, both of whom worked at Goldman Sachs. De-Laurey held a chequebook for the couple's joint bank account and repeatedly forged Beller's signature, helping herself to £1.1 (€1.6) million.
She constructed a web of lies to gain trust and conceal her thefts, including claims that she suffered from cancer and had been beaten by her husband. On one occasion she took a luxury break at a hotel in Beverly Hills, telling her bosses she was undergoing a hysterectomy. Later she bumped into Mead at Wimbledon, where she said her expensive tickets had been a prize in a competition. Tickets worth £55,000 (€82,000) for a four-person trip to see Lennox Lewis fight Mike Tyson in Las Vegas were also found by police after De-Laurey's arrest. When her scam was discovered, De-Laurey told Beller in a phone call that she was "in deep shit" and was "going down".
In a series of embarrassing revelations for her former bosses, De-Laurey and her lawyers claimed the money had been "a reward for being me", and that the money taken had been "little more than pocket money" to such high earners. Among the extracurricular duties she claimed to have carried out were organising children's parties and settling household bills. Further embarrassment was caused with suggestions of a sanctioned "culture of organised forgery" among Goldman secretaries.
To Mead's fury, De-Laurey also claimed the stolen cash had been a payment for her allegedly helping to cover up an extramarital affair when his wife called the office.
"I would often say, knowing where he was, that he was in a meeting on the 10th floor or in the middle of a conference call," De-Laurey told the jury. "My worth was huge to him and my loyalty and discretion were priceless."
Giving evidence, Mead conceded he had had an affair with an unnamed lawyer at a City firm called Freshfields - a revelation that caused raised eyebrows in London's square mile as Freshfields had acted for German telecoms group Mannesmann during its fight against Vodafone's £100 (€140) billion hostile takeover in 2000.
Mead insisted the two had only been friends at that time and that the woman had not worked in Freshfields' merger and acquisitions department. He told the jury the affair had been "a mistake". Mead, who harbours hopes of a political appointment in the US, has won an injunction banning publication of further details of his private life.
About £1 (€1.49) million is thought to have been recovered after De-Laurey's spending sprees, but much of the rest is thought to have been lost or hidden. Scepticism remains over De-Laurey's claims to have given large sums to charities. - (Guardian Service)