A Subway employee who stole nearly $19,000 from her employers over a two-week period in 2019 has been jailed for 15 months.
April Angeles Bautista earlier this year pleaded guilty to the theft of $18,727.75 and faced a possible jail term of between one and three years. In making her decision, Justice Cheryll Richards took into account the early plea, no previous convictions and low risk of reoffending. She considered these against aggravating factors, including the betrayal of trust to her employers, to hand down a custodial sentence, starting immediately.
The Grand Court heard on Thursday that Bautista, now 32, had arrived in the Cayman Islands from the Philippines in 2017 to work as assistant manager at Subway after her sister recommended her for the role. As part of her job, Bautista was responsible for handling and verifying cash amounts and making bank deposits from the four Subway stores.
It was at the beginning of March 2019 when the franchise owners discovered that there wasn’t enough money in the business account to meet payroll demands. On checking their online bank account, they discovered that no deposits had been made over a 15-day period between 8 Feb. and 27 Feb. 2019, contrary to Bautista’s records.
The court heard that Bautista had initially admitted to not depositing the money, but when asked what she had done with it, she said, “I don’t know.” Following her arrest for the suspected theft, she later denied having taken the money but changed her plea to guilty on the day a trial was due to start.
Her sister had repaid $1,500 as part of the total sum owed, but since then no other payments had been made.
Significant financial impact
The court heard a victim statement from the Subway owners saying that Bautista’s actions had had a “significant financial, emotional and psychological impact” on them, which had brought on feelings of “betrayal, anger and helplessness”.
Probationary reports on Bautista, who has two young children, said that she gave no thought to the impact of her actions and could not explain why she had done it. There had been no sign of what she had spent the money on, other than sending some money to her parents and on day-to-day expenses.
After hearing submissions from the prosecution and Bautista’s legal defence, Richards said the matter seemed to be one of “plain and simple dishonesty”, which had put the complainant through “years of uncertainty”. She said that community service or a suspended sentence was not an option.
Handing down the custodial sentence, Richards said that she had also considered imposing a compensation order for the money to be paid back plus interest but had decided against it in this case.
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