A bank manager and her husband have appeared in court charged with conspiring to defraud the Arima Borough Corporation of $412,490.
Melissa Gopaul, 40, and her 42-year-old husband Perry Pollard, both of Roystonia, Couva, were not called upon to plead to the charge when they appeared before Senior Magistrate Nanette Forde-John in the Port-of-Spain court yesterday morning.
The couple, the owners of Esperanza Construction Company Ltd, is accused of defrauding the corporation by attempting to deposit a fraudulent cheque which was drawn on the corporation’s account from the Central Bank.
Gopaul allegedly deposited the cheque at the RBC branch in Chaguanas where she worked earlier this month. Her colleagues contacted detectives of the Fraud Squad after they realised that the cheque was fraudulent.
The couple was granted bail by a Justice of the Peace after being charged over the weekend and were in court early for their first court appearance yesterday.
The amount of bail they were granted was not revealed in court as their bail bonds were merely certified by Forde-John during the hearing.
Forde-John transferred the case to the Chaguanas Magistrates’ Court where the couple will reappear on Friday morning.