Vincenzo Stivala, 74, went on trial today, accused of fraud to the detriment of the Water Services Corporation.
The head of the Prosecution Unit at the Attorney General’s Office Anthony Barbara, said in his opening address that this was a case of abuse of bank procedures for fraud. The case was not complicated and relatively easy to understand.
Although nobody was physically hurt here, it still caused damage to the economy and to the bank.
The most important factor was that the Water Services Corporation had engaged a contractor and paid for his works. On May 3, 2000, contractor Charles Dimech was given a cheque for Lm22,535.62. (approx €53,000).
On June 15 another cheque for the same amount for the same work was issued. Somebody took that second cheque and defrauded the corporation.
The WSC had still not received the money back, Dr Barbara said
He said the accused had power of attorney for his daughter. The money went into his daughter's account and he made a profit.
Police Inspector Paul Vassallo said that the accused had admitted to the police that he had been given the WSC cheque by a friend, Charles Meilaq, and he had cashed it through his daughter's account so that he could then hand him back the money in cash.
The inspector said the police had investigated reports on suspicious transactions involving the account belonging to the daughter of the accused, and it had resulted that the transactions were much higher than a government employee was expected to have through her income.
Taking the witness stand, Charles Meilaq said that at the time he used to lend money to people. He had problems with his wife and since he was afraid that his accounts would be frozen, he had given the cheque to Mr Stivala, but did not actually pay him for cashing it.
Replying to questions, Mr Meilaq confirmed that he was never arraigned in connection with this case.
He said that over a period of six months, he had given Mr Stivala between 20 and 30 cheques to deposit or cash, because he trusted him.
Contractor Charles Dimech said he had been engaged in this work for some 25 years and every month and a half he would receive a cheque from the WSC for work he carried out.
He denied ever having sent an invoice twice, and said he was only paid once for the work he had carried out.
ACCUSED GIVES EVIDENCE
The accused, Mr Stivala, told the court that at the time he ran a car rental company with 170 vehicles. He also owned a bar/restaurant in Sliema. He had been a friend of Mr Meilaq for some 30 years.
Mr Stivala said that at the time of the case he had problems with the Inland Revenue Department. He however had between Lm7,000 and Lm10,000 in cash in a wardrobe at home. He later deposited the cash in his daughter's account and had power of attorney so that he could use the account. At the time Mr Meilaq had problems with his wife and therefore he handed him the cheque to him for safekeeping.
The cheque given to him by Mr Meilaq was for Lm22,535.62. He withdrew Lm535.62 and gave it to Mr Meilaq and kept the rest for Mr Meilaq in the bank. Such amounts, he said, were peanuts for Mr Meilaq.
The WSC had never filed a case against him to ecoup the money.