UPSET AT THE WAY he was treated by Clico chairman Leroy Parris who told him he would be losing his 15 years of service with the insurance company, messenger/driver Michael Rudolph Cook took matters into his own hands.
When he was given the company’s money to deposit to its bank account, neither he nor the money – just over $1.3 million in cash and cheques – ever made it there.
The cheques and deposit bags were burnt; cupboards were built in his house; accessories were put on his car and two women, one of whom he only knew by a nickname, got houses out of him.
Cook, 50, of Midway Lane, The Pine, St Michael, yesterday confessed to 12 counts of theft of money and cheques from Clico International Life Insurance Company Ltd. and its sister company Colonial Life Insurance Company Trinidad Ltd., on different dates between February 8 and May 18, 2007.
And now the offender, who had one prior brush with the law, is on remand at HMP Dodds awaiting sentencing and the preparation of a presentencing report.
He was in the No. 2 Supreme Court where Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Donna Babb-Agard, QC, revealed that Cook was the one who was authorised to collect the money and cheques, income generated from policies, and from the accounts department and deposit them to the company’s bank account.
But after personnel from the bank queried the non-deposit of money and Clico chairman Parris called in police, investigators tracked down Cook who had signed for the deposit bags.
He confessed and told them: “When I took out the money, I burn the bags and the cheques. I was hurt when Mr Parris tell me that my years I got in at Clico don’t count and that I got to start over, so I just took the money.”
