A FORMER ANZ bank officer who pleaded guilty to stealing more than $130,000 from the bank has changed her plea on Friday.
Annie Ogoga was re-arraigned, Friday and this time she pleaded not guilty to two counts of larceny by a servant and one count of attempted larceny by servant.
The change of plea was made due to one technical ground her lawyer told the court of on Friday.
As a result, he wanted his client to be re-arraigned while that technical ground was sorted out.
Principal Magistrate Fatima Taeburi told the defence counsel that he should have informed the court earlier before his client entered her pleas.
Ms Taeburi added that Annie was remanded in custody after pleading guilty to the offences because of risk of absconding bail due to nature of the offences.
She however, entered not guilty pleas to all the charges against Annie and vacated all the guilty pleas Annie entered earlier.
“The accused is at liberty to apply for bail,” Ms Taeburi said.
Annie will appear again in court on September 26, with her co-accused Elmas Toluku and Lonsdale Ale who already pleaded not guilty to one count each of larceny.
This is for a pre-trial conference to be conducted on their case before a trial date will be fixed.
Annie was charged in relation to the incident between October and December, 2013, when she was working at the ANZ bank.
The monies stolen were said to be unclaimed money in the bank.
Annie at that time of the offence was working at the call centre and also as a teller and reconciliation officer.
Her job was to reconcile cheques and unclaimed monies and to raise other personal bank cheques and have them transferred to other banks.
It was whilst working as a reconciliation officer that she allegedly stole huge amounts of money on two different occasions resulting in huge loss for her employer.
She then transferred the money to the accounts of her sister and sister’s boyfriend at Westpac Bank and later withdrawn most of the money.
Elmas Toluku and Lonsdale Ale however on a previous court appearance have pleaded not guilty to one count each of larceny laid against them.
Another cheque of more than $150,000 owned by JAK Legal Service was not able to be cashed as the bank found out and reported the matter to the police.
The matter was reported to police after Annie’s supervisor check through her beam journal and found cheques Annie raised were unclaimed monies in the bank.
The matter was then reported to the police by the bank management after the bank found fraud was involved.
Daniel Kwalai of Public Solicitor’s Office is representing Annie while Public Prosecutor Willy Vaiyu appeared for the Crown.
By ASSUMPTA BUCHANAN
