The former employer of Karlene Whyte, from whom she defrauded $2.9 million over a number of years, says her prison sentence is “just and fair”.
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The Hartley local was sentenced to a maximum of 11 years in prison on Wednesday, August 16, at Sydney’s District Court.
The 43-year-old manager was charged in late 2014 on 27 counts relating to the misappropriation of large sums of money from her employer, a local crane hire business, over seven years.
She was granted a non-parole period of 6 and a half years. It is Ms Whyte’s first custodial sentence.
The CEO of Turner and Central Cranes, the local Lithgow business Whyte worked for, said the sentence was good news.
“There is no winner in a thing like this but it was a good result for us in the end. Justice was served,” Graham Jenkins said.
“It was a better result than we thought it would be.”
Mr Jenkins said he has been working to improve his business, which employs 30 people in Lithgow, Orange and Bathurst, since Whyte’s arrest in 2014.
“It’s been a hard slog, she jeopardised a lot of jobs. That was basically all our profits,” he said.
“We’re trying to get back on track, which has definitely been easier now we are getting the money in.”
Mr Jenkins said he had been able to “gain most of the assets back” through a separate action heard in the Supreme Court.
“We’re expecting more court action to happen at a later date,” he said.
Included in Whyte’s offences were 19 counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception and 8 counts of obtaining money by deception.