Former family violence charity boss found guilty of faking invoices to steal $40k

The former head of a family violence prevention charity has been found guilty of faking invoices to steal about $44,000 from the organisation. Photo / NZME

The former head of a family violence prevention charity has been found guilty of faking invoices to steal about $44,000 from the organisation.

Betty Sio was chief executive of the Pacific Island Safety and Prevention Project, which got $2.5 million yearly funding from mostly the Ministry of Social Development, the Ministry of Justice and the Department of Corrections.

Sio was found guilty on two charges of dishonestly using a document at the Manukau District Court in January.

Sio and former operations manager Tapualii Raewyn Uitime were largely responsible for managing funds, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) said.

The pair stole about $260,000 with fake invoices from suppliers and authorising cash cheques to pay them. Sio and Uitime cashed most of these cheques for themselves.

Uitime was sentenced to two years and one month jail time in October 2020 after pleading guilty to three charges of forgery and six representative charges of dishonestly using a document.

“[Sio] abused her position [as chief executive] by taking advantage of lax financial controls to steal $44,000 for herself and turned a blind eye to the actions of Ms Uitime, who stole around $216,000,” SFO director Karen Chang said.

The charity was supposed to provide prevention, education, counselling and development services to Auckland’s Pacific Island community.

“As chief executive, Ms Sio was responsible for distributing funds that could have made a significant difference to the lives of vulnerable people in her community,” Chang said.

“This was prolonged offending over the course of years, and ultimately contributed to the closure of an organisation which had been recognised as providing a valuable and important service.”