By Al Williams, Open Justice reporter
Rachel Marie Lamberth cast a web of deception and entangled others in her fraudulent activities.
As a payroll officer at a construction company, she created fake billing statements, wage slips, letters and transactions.
Lamberth then stole $188,000 from her employer and the Covid-19 wage subsidy scheme.
In her defence, she said she was addicted to gambling, completely lost control of her habit, could no longer get loans or finance, and resorted to stealing the money.
But now her years of deceit are over.
Lamberth, who is now known as Rachel Wansbrough, was sentenced in the Christchurch District Court on Wednesday for multiple charges of using documents for pecuniary advantage.
The summary of facts showed she was appointed payroll manager at Isaac Construction in May 2020 and given full access to payroll and debtor systems.
She worked from home at times and had personal accounts with seven banks.
The trail of dishonesty started in April 2021 when she emailed the company’s financial administrator and directed a $718 refund be issued to a customer, providing an image of a BNZ account number, which was in fact hers.
She was at it again in September 2023 with claims a client was paid $11,842 in error, forwarding a fake email to the company’s administration manager, purporting to be from the client company, while directing a refund into her SBS Bank account.
In March 2024 Lamberth issued a credit for $9479 that she said was owed to a company client, claiming it had been paid in error by the client company, and provided a fake invoice.
The money was paid into her ANZ account.
In total, she stole $56,620 from the company between April 2021 and July 2024 in eight transactions.
Meanwhile, Lamberth lodged multiple Covid-19 support applications with the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) between April 2022 and May 2023 purporting to be on the company’s behalf of hundreds of employees.
Lamberth supplied her personal bank account details as the company’s account for payments.
In total, $131,000 was received from MSD on behalf of the construction company in various wage subsidies.
Judge Tony Couch said the offending was serious.
“In each case you forged documents to create the deception.”
Her use of documents to carry out the offending was prolific and a deep breach of trust, the judge said.
“All of your offending was clearly premeditated.”
With starting point of three years and four months’ jail, the judge applied discounts for guilty pleas, rehabilitative efforts and remorse.
Turning to reparation, the judge said a substantial amount of the MSD money had been paid to the company, then into Lamberth’s accounts.
He said the total loss to the construction company was $119,000 while the total amount she received directly from MSD was $69,000.
The judge sentenced Lamberth to 12 months’ home detention and ordered reparation of $119,000 to Isaac Construction and $69,000 to MSD.
