A crooked monetary advise r who swindled a widow with dementia is being pursued for greater than £760,000 below proceeds of crime legal guidelines.
Gordon Sofa was convicted of embezzling £170,000 belonging to frail Marjorie Stewart earlier than and after her dying in an Edinburgh nursing residence.
The 57-year-old admitted charging the pensioner as much as £1000 a day to learn financial institution statements to her however claimed she was “glad” with the association.
A jury discovered Sofa responsible after a trial on the metropolis’s Sheriff Courtroom and he faces a prolonged jail sentence.
Following the decision, it emerged prosecutors are pursuing Sofa for £762,597 below proceeds of crime laws.
A forensic accountant pored over Sofa’s monetary data in the course of the probe into the lacking money.
Sofa was convicted of embezzling £170,000 from Marjorie and her property and he isn’t dealing with every other prison fees.
However it’s understood the specialist accountant recognized big sums of “unaccounted for” money whereas probing Sofa.
A supply stated: “Sofa’s funds have been forensically examined and cash was discovered which was not correctly accounted for within the traditional channels.
“That would imply the cash, aside from that embezzled from Marjorie, was earned legitimately however not correctly disclosed.
"Nonetheless, that shall be as much as Sofa to show. In any other case the cash shall be answerable for potential seizure.”
Throughout the trial, Sofa admitted levying £197-an-hour charges on susceptible Marjorie, who died aged 91, in 2013.
The criminal claimed the retired maths instructor was conscious he was charging her big sums, including she seen it as “good worth for cash”.
On Thursday a jury unanimously discovered him responsible of embezzling Marjorie’s fortune whereas holding energy of lawyer over her affairs and performing as executor of her property.
The shameless thief claimed the pensioner used up “40 per cent” of his time as a monetary adviser though she had solely a primary portfolio of shares and premium bonds.
The court docket heard Sofa lied in court docket paperwork after Marjorie’s dying, pretending she nonetheless had £75,000 in property when he’d drained nearly every little thing into his account.
When the beneficiaries of her will, together with family members and charities, started asking questions on their bequests, the trial heard Sofa fled to Hong Kong below the pretence of taking on a job.
His ex-wife Kerry, 53, instructed the trial she reported Sofa to police over the lacking money in 2016 after studying he’d joined a web-based relationship service.
Police arrested Sofa in April 2019 after he returned to the UK for a enterprise convention.
Sheriff Kenneth Campbell QC stated he would think about the proceeds of crime motion subsequent month when Sofa is sentenced.
Sofa was ordered to give up his passport as a part of his bail circumstances.
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