Wednesday, February 13, 2008 Pawnshop worker denies stealing P2M in jewelry
A CRIMINAL case for 61 counts of estafa was filed yesterday against a pawnshop assistant manager and appraiser who allegedly carted away over P2 million in company money.
Lucia Delicano allegedly did this by using fictitious names to make bogus transactions with the Fuente Branch of the M. Lhuillier pawnshop where she was assigned.
The Office of the Cebu City Prosecutor brought the case before the Regional Trial Court (RTC) yesterday.
With the bogus transactions entered as factual in the records, Delicano would then release to herself the money supposedly appraised as equivalent to the pawned item, the complaint said.
She supposedly got original jewelries from the pawnshop vault and then replaced them with fake ones, hence a separate complaint for 19 counts of qualified theft.
Bail
City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon approved the recommendation of Assistant Prosecutor Buddy del Prado. Prado recommended a P40,000 bail for each of the 61 counts after ruling that the defenses Delicano raised during the preliminary investigation is better left for the trial courts to assess.
Delicano, though, is not in custody. As a matter of procedure, a warrant of arrest will be issued against her as soon as the criminal case gets raffled off to an RTC judge.
In her counter-affidavit, Delicano denied the charge and said their office’s procedure is such that it is the branch manager who receives pawned items and appraises them.
It is the branch manager who encodes into the computer database all pawn transactions as well.
Unusual
Moreover, all M. Lhuillier pawnshops are audited five times a month, she said. In all those audits she has undergone since occupying the position of assistant branch manager in January 1, 2005, no unusual transaction has ever been recorded, she said.
On the alleged switching, she said she doesn’t have sole custody over the pawnshop’s vault.
If there had been switching, she said, customers who retrieve their pawned items would have noticed it.
Genuine
“Thus, it is absolutely impossible for me to have stolen any genuine jewelries from the pawnshop and replaced them with fake ones as alleged by the auditors,” he said.
“I have never stolen anything from the pawnshop – either jewelry or cash – because if it were true, I would have lived a very comfortable life now. The truth is I need a job to support my family and would never think of stealing anything from the very company who has given me such job,” she stressed. (KNR)
