The Larnaca District Court today found seven employees of the Municipality of Paralimni guilty of misappropriation of proceeds from the organized beaches on which they were responsible for issuing tickets for renting beds and umbrellas on the beach in the area of Protaras.
The offenses were committed between 21 May 2012 and 5 September 2012 in Paralimni.
Specifically, the Court found Christaki Temenou, 54, Costa Filippou, 41, Neophytos Neophytou, 44, Andreas Sophocles, 62, Christakis Periklis, 54, Christakis Nikolaou, 59, and Manolis Motis, 68, guilty.
The court acquitted and acquitted five employees who faced the same charges, namely Kosma Kosma, 57, Panagiotis Andreou, 50, Antonis Moustakidis, 62, Mario Pieretti, 34, and Tasso Maroullis, 42.
Following today's ruling, the court ordered the detention of the seven guilty officers and set July 13, 2016 as the date for the speeches of the defense attorneys of the former employees, in order to mitigate their sentence.
The defendants faced a total of 98 charges, most notably the theft by an employee, while the total amount that appears to have been appropriated is around 100 thousand euros.
The case, which was revealed on July 11, 2012, was presented before the Court by the Prosecutor of the Republic, Popi Pitsillou.
According to the facts of the case, on July 11, 2012, TAE Famagusta filed a complaint on behalf of the Municipality of Paralimni, cases of theft by employees of the Municipality, who were beach workers in the rental of umbrellas and beach beds. According to the initial complaint, the workers handed over less money to the funds of the Municipality than those received as rights to use the umbrellas and beds.
An audit carried out through the software system of the Municipality of Paralimni for the management of umbrellas and beds revealed that the Municipality, in the context of an internal investigation conducted on July 8, 2012, removed from employees through the software system the ability to issue daily receipts. The aim of this action was to find out from the Municipality whether the money collected by the workers was all delivered or only the amounts mentioned in the daily report were delivered.
Following this development, the suspects began delivering different amounts of what they were supposed to deliver in accordance with the collection mentioned in the software system.
Further investigation carried out by the Municipality of Paralimni reveals that in some cases, instead of issuing a receipt to customers, its employees issued a receipt once and the next customers reprinted the first receipt, thus appropriating the money collected.
Even in some cases, employees issued blank receipts to customers or handwritten receipts instead of issuing them through the system. In other cases, while receiving a sum of money, the receipt they issued was for a smaller amount or they did not give any receipt at all.
Sometimes while all the beds and umbrellas were rented, the money handed over by the employees to the Municipality of Paralimni did not correspond to the amount that had to be collected.
It is noted that the municipal employees were arrested on September 5, 2012 as suspects in a series of thefts from the rental of beach beds and umbrellas on the organized beaches of the Municipality of Paralimni in the area of Protaras.
Source: KYPE