Yahoo Finance ‘Greedy’ fraudster exposed in luxury property scam after she lied to a judge about rent arrears
A woman whose defrauded a luxury property management firm out of £30,000 was caught out when she lied to a judge about the state of her finances, a court heard.
Misha Wildman, 27, invented a series of bogus property repairs while working as an assistant at D&GBM, funnelling the money into her own bank account.
The fraud went undetected until Wildman – facing rent arrears - handed a doctored letter to a county court judge suggesting her bosses had agreed to cover the outstanding payments.
When the judge investigated if the letter was real, Wildman’s fraudulent activities were exposed, Southwark crown court heard.
On Wednesday, Wildman was handed a two-year suspended prison term for six fraudulent payments totaling £30,970 from D&GBM between October 2019 and January 2020.
She has also been prosecuted for defrauding her previous employers, JOS Property Services based in Willesden, out of £17,000, when investigators found evidence Wildman had spent money on designer goods and home improvements.
Sentencing her yesterday, Judge Christopher Hehir concluded: “You got greedy and you don’t seem to think it’s a big deal to break the law in order to satisfy that greed.”
He spared Wildman a spell behind bars as she has a nine-year-old son to look after and is expecting her second child this summer.
The court heard Wildman was hired by D&GBM, a leading property firm based in Vauxhall which manages homes in luxury areas such as Chelsea, Kensington, and Mayfair, in July 2019.
“Ms Wildman was an assistant at the company whose role was to support property managers and deal with insurance claims when issues arose in buildings they managed”, said prosecutor Jodie Hitchcock.
“In February 2020, company director Calum Watson was contacted by a judge from the Central London County Court dealing with the defendant in the context of a repossession hearing.
“The defendant had submitted a letter to the court purporting to suggest D&GBM would pay for her rent arrears. The court made enquiries of the company, confirming no agreement was in place and the letter was fraudulent.”
Wildman admitted submitting three bogus invoices for £13,000, and an internal audit then uncovered a further £17,000 of fraudulent payments she had authorised.
She told police the money had been taken to settle a debt owed by the father of her child after he was himself sent to prison, but Judge Hehir said: “I’m not buying that”.
He added that Wildman was “very lucky” not to be charged with perverting the course of justice over her bogus letter to the county court judge.
Ms Hitchcock told the court the earlier fraud prosecution against Wildman had revealed £7,000 in spending on JOS Property Services credit cards, as well as “receipts for a significant amount of designer items, purchased by her at the time she said she was in rent arrears”.
Wildman, of Westminster, pleaded guilty to six counts of fraud by false representation against D&GBM.
She was given a two-year prison sentence suspended for two years and ordered to attend a 19-day rehabilitation programme.
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