The Tribune

By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

FORMER College of the Bahamas employee Chimeka Gibbs is seeking to appeal her sentence and conviction for stealing over $700,000 from the tertiary institution over a seven-year period.

The Tribune understands Gibbs has secured attorney Murrio Ducille to aid her in contesting her conviction for stealing $704,580 from the college, now the University of the Bahamas, between March 2008 and October 2015.

However, according to the Court of Appeal’s website, the hearing set for the 21st of this month is an extension of time (EOT) hearing, thus meaning Gibbs filed her notice of appeal after the 21-day deadline to do so.

Gibbs will now have to clear the first hurdle of convincing the appellate court to accede to her EOT application, and if successful, then the substantive appeal will be heard.

In April, Justice Cheryl Grant-Thompson sentenced the 40-year-old to 15 years in prison—nine years for the 16 counts of falsification of accounts and 15 years for the eight counts of stealing by reason of employment.

The sentences relative to the separate charges are to run concurrently, making for 15 years total.

She was unanimously convicted of the “24 counts of dishonesty”, as Justice Grant-Thompson put it, in February by a nine-member jury.

At the time, Gibbs was also ordered to pay back the $704,580 she stole from the school within the next five years, via annual installments of $140,916.

Failure to do so will result in an additional year in prison, Justice Grant-Thompson said.

The judge also ordered that the $66,369.26 on Gibbs’ various accounts at Scotiabank, FirstCaribbean International Bank and Commonwealth Bank, be forfeited to the Public Treasury.

However, the judge said via that forfeiture, Gibbs would have satisfied almost half of the first installment to be repaid, making for a difference of $74,546.74.

According to court documents, Gibbs served as both a senior clerk and a human resources assistant at the college.

The jury was told Gibbs stole over $700,000 from COB by reason of her employment at the institution. The jurors were also told Gibbs falsified numerous COB direct deposit files, the result of which purported to show she was entitled to over $200,000 in salary payments.

According to the evidence given at trial, Gibbs accomplished the latter feat by manipulating the information contained on certain documents to be submitted to the Bank of the Bahamas on behalf of COB.

As a result, Gibbs received up to $13,000 over and above her monthly net salary of $2,395 between 2008 and 2015. In total, Gibbs paid herself $640,000 extra between those seven years to various bank accounts at Commonwealth Bank, Scotiabank FirstCaribbean International Bank and the Royal Bank of Canada.

In her sentencing remarks, Justice Grant-Thompson said Gibbs’ actions were “brazen and reprehensible,” and noted a “high degree of planning” was required to execute such an “egregious level” of criminality.

She also said that in previously being employed at the country’s premier tertiary institution and ultimately tasked with dealing with the payroll, Gibbs committed an “egregious, shameful and reprehensible” abuse of the trust placed in her.