Dental assistant arrested for embezzling SGD$45,000

Singapore: A dental assistant has been arrested for embezzling nearly SGD$45,000 (US$33,200) in patient fees. She was given the chance to redeem herself by deducting her salary until she pays the absorbed amount in full.

However, Charlene Ashby Clay continued to embezzle funds in different ways, even sending money home to buy property in Malaysia.

The 24-year-old Malaysian was jailed for one year, four months and two weeks after pleading guilty to two counts of criminal breach of trust as a servant and one count of diverting the benefit of a criminal act.

Her sentencing also considered four other charges, including account forgery and cheating.

Between October 1, 2018, and March 25, 2019, Clay was entrusted with billing patients for dental services, but pocketed them. On point-of-sale (POS) systems, Clay states that the payment was made via NETS or credit card, which cannot be verified immediately compared to cash payments.

Then she would embezzle the cash. Clay’s wrongdoing would not have been found unless the clinic’s bank accounts were examined.

In this way, Clay siphoned off $44,861 in cash between October 1, 2018 and March 25, 2019.

In late March 2019, the clinic’s accountant informed the owner of a discrepancy between the amount the clinic received and its POS system. Records show that the clinic charged $44,861 less than it was due based on what was entered in the POS system.

Clay confessed to the crime upon confrontation by the clinic owner. Clay then pleaded not to have her work permit cancelled and to continue working at the clinic. She claimed she was willing to repay the owners.

The owners decided to give her another chance, and the pair reached an agreement on May 3, 2019, to deduct between $650 and $1,050 from Clay’s monthly salary until the $44,861 was repaid in full.

However, Clay had no intention of stopping the misappropriation of funds and instead resorted to a different modus operandi.

She received up to $113,520 through the program and embezzled $75,070 after returning some of the money to the clinic’s bank account.

Clay remitted some of the misappropriated funds to a bank account in Malaysia. She used some of the money to buy a house in Malaysia.

She siphoned off a total of $119,931.