THE Goldman Sachs secretary who plundered more than £4 million from her bosses went on to steal thousands of pounds from her mother — even while she was standing trial — a court was told yesterday.
As Joyti De-Laurey began a seven-year jail sentence last night, her husband, Anthony, who was sucked into the multimillion-pound fraud, admitted that his wife was a “greedy and manipulative liar” who could charm the birds from the trees.
Passing sentence on De-Laurey, Judge Christopher Elwen went further. “You plundered the accounts of those for whom you were working quite simply for your own selfish ends,” he said.
“Lying is woven into the very fabric of your being. You are duplicitous, deceitful and thoroughly dishonest.”
De-Laurey, 35, siphoned off millions of pounds from her bosses at Goldman Sachs and spent it on luxury cars and jewellery, including £380,000 at Cartier as well as first-class holidays and a £750,000 villa in Cyprus.
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For the first time yesterday the court learnt that De-Laurey, from North Cheam, South London, stole £16,000 from her mother Devi Schahou’s building society account while she was standing trial.
Both De Laurey’s husband and mother, a GP, were also sentenced yesterday on charges of laundering money which was stolen from Goldman Sachs. The judge sentenced Mr De-Laurey to 18 months in jail and his mother-in-law to six months, both suspended for two years.
Neither of them chose to greet De-Laurey as she was led into the dock for sentencing yesterday at Southwark Crown Court.
She wiped tears from her cheeks as Jeremy Dein, QC, for the defence, offered his mitigation for the crimes of making false money transfers and issuing bogus cheques.
He described how she came to plunder the accounts of the Goldman Sachs directors Scott Mead and the husband and wife team, Ron Beller and Jennifer Moses, all of whom were so rich that they did not at first notice that the money was missing.
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Mr Dein said that his client found herself in financial difficulties before she went to work for the global investment bank, when a sandwich bar she ran closed down.
“Her inability to grapple with her finances probably set her on her path to the dock. Her first bitter experience of financial turmoil coincided with a novel introduction to a Dallas-type world where huge, unthinkable amounts of money stared her in the face day in and day out.
“For her those circumstances (provided) a lethal combination of low ebb, excessive responsibility and irresistible temptation. We invite your honour to accept that she was deeply worried for her family’s future.”
Mr Dein said that she had received death threats from the “most violent depths of the criminal underworld” and had tried to commit suicide twice while in prison and was now on suicide watch.
The judge told De-Laurey: “The idea that you had (the) actual or tacit permission of the Bellers or Mr Mead to take money from their accounts as and when you felt the need . . . or believed that you deserved it as a just reward for your dedication, discretion and loyalty . . . was, as the jury must have concluded, both absurd and preposterous.
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“To borrow a word of yours, you plundered the accounts of those for whom you were working quite simply for your own selfish ends.
“They trusted you and held you in high regard. That was fostered in part by a cocktail of lies which you dispensed as to your health and marital difficulties.
“On the evidence I have heard and from observing you in the witness box, it is clear to me that lying is woven into the very fabric of your being.”