A Sydney accountant who siphoned $43 million from her employer and then embarked on lavish spending sprees at the city's top jewellery and perfume stores has had her sentenced cut by a year on appeal.
In the largest case of fraud by a woman in NSW history, Rajina Rita Subramaniam repeatedly took tens of thousands of dollars from ING Australia, where she was an accountant for more than a decade.
The 45-year-old from Castle Hill spent the money on seven prestige properties - including four units on Bondi Beach's exclusive Campbell Parade - 600 pieces of designer jewellery, and 200 perfumes and make-up items. But then she barely touched them.
When ING finally twigged to the fraud and called police, officers from the fraud squad discovered many of the luxury items still in their boxes stashed under her desk, with none of them in her personal possession.
She did not live at any of the luxury properties, leaving them empty or allowing shop assistants she had befriended during her shopping sprees to stay there.
Subramaniam pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a maximum of 15 years' jail and a minimum of seven years' jail by District Court judge Michael Finnane. But a three-judge panel of the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on Wednesday reduced the offender's minimum sentence to six years and the maximum to 12.
The panel found that Judge Finnane had imposed an aggregate sentence for all offences rather than imposing a separate sentence for each one. While he was entitled to do this, the panel found he had gone about it in the wrong way. The Court of Appeal recalculated the sentence in accordance with correct procedure and found that it was too high.
During her sentencing in late 2011, the court heard Subramaniam was motivated, not by greed, but by a desire for revenge over the allegedly abusive sexual relationship she was having with a workmate, and an overwhelming need for positive affirmation.
She had extremely poor self-esteem, due in part to the sexual abuse she had allegedly experienced as a child at the hands of her grandfather and two uncles.
After becoming involved with an ING colleague, she began to perceive the relationship as abusive but continued to see the man for years. This alleged abuse and the feeling her supervisors were bullying her led to a desire for revenge and to ''get back at the system and others within the system'', the court heard.
Subramaniam will be eligible for parole on October 3, 2015.
