Mother of five gets 37 years for fraud

Kadian Russell, the purported mastermind behind the scheme to defraud a loan agency of more than $12 million, was yesterday sentenced to a total of 37 years in prison.

However, Russell, who has five children, including a one-year-old, will serve three years, as most of the sentences will run concurrently.

She is among five persons who pleaded guilty last December to deceiving a financial institution in order to get a combined $12.5 million in loans. Russell reportedly received $8 million in loans but to date, only repaid $1.2 million. She pleaded guilty to four counts of uttering a forged document, to which she was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment at hard labour on each count. Those sentences will begin at once, which means that she will only serve 18 months. Russell will serve two years' imprisonment at hard labour for each of the 14 counts of obtaining credit by fraud. That sentence will also run concurrently. She was also ordered to repay the remaining $6.9 million.

For the two counts of forgery, she has been sentenced to two years' imprisonment. However, that sentence will begin after she has served one year imprisonment for conspiracy to defraud.

On the same day that she was being sentenced, the Kingston and St Andrew Parish Court heard that Russell, while on bail for the offences for which she was sentenced, committed to other fraud-related offences. It was reported that on March 4, 2022, Russell, using the name Marcia Thompson, pretended that she had apartments for rent, collecting $180,000 and $160,000, respectively, from two complainants. Russell pleaded guilty to obtaining money by false pretence, and is to be sentenced on July 11.

Meanwhile, despite a plea from her attorney, Hopeton Marshall, for leniency, Senior Parish Judge Lori-Anne Cole-Montaque made it clear that Russell will have to spend time behind bars.

It was reported that between December 2020 and September 2021, the loan agency received 25 applications, including requests for loans from the defendants, one of whom is a former Corporate Area preparatory school teacher. In support of the loan applications, the applicants presented job letters and salary slips purportedly obtained from a Corporate Area preparatory school. The loans were approved and disbursed to each applicant's saving accounts of their financial institution.

Based on suspicious activities, the applications were reviewed. It was later discovered that one of the five persons before the court was an employee of the educational institution and that job letters and salary slips submitted were forged. The court heard yesterday that Russell submitted applications in other names, amounting to an excess of 15 names.