Lower Hutt accountant struck off register after pleading guilty to misconduct
Thursday, 7 December 2017
Lower Hutt accountant Paulette O'Reilly will be removed from the Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand (NZICA) register after she pleaded guilty to misappropriating $57,000 of a client's money.
The misappropriation was by way of 105 withdrawals of the client's money between 2006 and 2016, which were held in O'Reilly's own savings account on behalf of the client.
At a determination of the Disciplinary Tribunal, O'Reilly, through a lawyer, also admitted to using a client's money for purposes other than what they were to be held for, and allowing bank fees to be withdrawn from a client's money.
In November, a hearing found O'Reilly's integrity was in question.
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The tribunal's original concerns included potential risk to O'Reilly's current and future clients. Its decision questioned whether the wrongdoing might be more widespread than one client.
The document also says a review of O'Reilly's practice account did not reveal any issues with her other clients.
O'Reilly has also partially admitted to providing a spreadsheet, in November 2016, reconciling payments received and made on her client's behalf, which was materially different from her bank.
The decision document says O'Reilly's spreadsheet omitted $4,868.43 worth of commission payments she had received and made on her client's behalf.
But O'Reilly had given assurances that funds were kept separate from her own, or were used for her client's benefit and had been appropriately accounted for, it says.
O'Reilly's lawyer described her as 'being careless', the decision document says.
It also says the tribunal found that some of the errors in O'Reilly's original spreadsheet were 'at best made recklessly' and, in all probability, were deliberate.
'The member's resistance at the original hearing to having the account transactions investigated, without explanation from the member now that that investigation has shown the member's misappropriations, leads the Tribunal to draw the inference that the Member knew at the time that her misconduct would be exposed.'
The tribunal found O'Reilly's misappropriation of her client's funds incompatible with membership of the institute.
O'Reilly had reimbursed or repaid the client the money the institute's investigator found had been misappropriated.
The Professional Conduct Committee sought full costs of $30,763, and sought removal of O'Reilly from the register.
The document says O'Reilly accepted that it was an inevitable consequence of her misconduct.