Jail sentence for nurse aide who defrauded elderly colleagues of nearly S$10,000 to pay off debts

SINGAPORE: A nursing assistant was sentenced to two years in prison on Thursday (Nov 21) for defrauding colleagues of almost S$10,000 (US$7,500) to pay off debts.

Yari Rawi, 50, is a criminal who was previously jailed for cheating by targeting older colleagues in a similar manner.

His current crimes were committed while he was already under investigation and shortly after being released from prison for his previous crime.

Yari told the court he reoffended so quickly because he was heavily in debt and was being chased by illegal loan sharks.

Repeated attempts to get a job stop were unsuccessful, he said, because his employers fired him when they learned he had a criminal record.

Yari said this was because his previous conviction was in the news and asked Chief District Judge Toh Han Li if he could prevent this case from being reported in the press.

“I’m sorry, I can’t control the broadcast because these are open court proceedings,” the judge told him.

Yari pleaded guilty to two cheating charges and a third was taken into consideration for sentencing.

He met one of his victims, a 68-year-old social worker, while they were both working at New Horizon Center.

Between October 2020 and February 2021, Yari approached him for a loan, claiming it was for funeral expenses and eye surgery for family members.

He lent her a total of S$3,800, but made excuses when she asked him to return the amount. He later admitted that the excuses were false and that he used the money to pay off his loans.

Another victim was a 64-year-old caregiver whom Yari met while working at another organization.

He told the caregiver that he had a contact in Japan where he could purchase branded bags at a discount.

The man lent her more than S$4,400 to buy four Maison Goyard bags. After the money was transferred on January 5, 2021, Yari said the bags would arrive by the end of the month.

He later told the man that the wrong bags were delivered and he returned them. He avoided further calls from the caregiver.

The old man, who could not get his money back several times, filed a complaint with the police.

Yari’s third charge was that he defrauded two women of more than S$1,500 by claiming he could book flights and hotels in Jakarta.

Yari also has a previous criminal record for breach of trust and forgery.

But she told Judge Toh that she was doing her best to change and was in the last two weeks of her hospital detention to get her nursing license.

Defense lawyer Danny Nah said Yari was determined to turn her life around, doing well on her nursing course at the Technical Training Institute and receiving awards.

While he asked for a prison sentence of 22 months, Deputy Public Prosecutor Santhra Aiyyasamy asked for a prison sentence of three years and three months to four years and five months.

Judge Toh disputed the proportionality of the prosecutor’s proposed sentence, noting that Yari had been sentenced to five months in prison for a similar charge in 2020 but had now “jumped” to more than a year in prison per charge.

In his decision, the judge noted that Yari paid full compensation to the victims, but that he should receive a harsher sentence because his previous sentence did not deter him.

Mr Nah then informed the court that Yari was a Ministry of Health bond holder and needed time to notify the ministry of his conviction. He requested that his client’s prison sentence be suspended so that he could do this.

Judge Toh allowed Yari to begin serving his sentence next January without any increase in his S$15,000 bail.

The penalty for cheating is imprisonment for up to 10 years and a fine.