Malinda’s husband, relatives sent to prison

The husband and two relatives of former Citibank manager Malinda Dee received prison sentences ranging from two years and 10 months to four years for money laundering and forgery on Thursday.

The presiding panel of judges of the trial at the South Jakarta District Court sentenced Malinda’s husband Andhika Gumilang to four years in prison and a fine of Rp 350 million (US$39,200) for abetting money laundering and forgery.

Andhika received a more lenient sentence than the prosecutors’ demand of six years.

Andhika was found guilty of accepting Rp 331 million in cash and a Hummer car worth Rp 1.1 billion from Malinda, who is accused of embezzling Rp 44 billion from her customers’ accounts at the bank.

The court will begin the first hearing of Malinda’s trial in November.

Andhika was found guilty of falsifying an identity card in the name of Juan Farero to open a bank account.

Andhika’s lawyer Devie Waluyo said that she would file an appeal.

“My client did not know anything about Malinda’s crimes,” she said.

In a separate hearing, Malinda’s in-law Ismail bin Janim received a three-years-and-eight-months prison term and a fine of Rp 200 million, lighter than the prosecutors’ demand of 5.5 years and a fine of Rp 350 million.

Ismail, the husband of Malinda’s sibling Visca Lovitasari, was found guilty of accepting and circulating as much as Rp 21 billion of the money that Malinda embezzled.

Ismail’s job was to circulate funds through numerous unauthorized transactions to several bank accounts belonging to Malinda, Visca, Andhika, as well as his own bank account.

Ismail also transferred some of the money to Malinda’s private company PT Eksklusif Jaya Perkasa.

Ismail and Visca previously said in their defense statement that they expected to be acquitted of all charges because they were innocent in the fraud case and had a four-year-old son and two-year-old daughter who needed their parents.

Presiding judge Kusno said that Ismail should have suspected that the money did not belong to
Malinda.

“A large sum of money should have been something suspicious, but the defendant ignored that fact,” he said. Visca received a sentence of two years and 10 months in jail and a fine of Rp 200 million.

Presiding judge Mien Trisnawati said that Visca was guilty of accepting Rp 8 billion from Malinda by way of 35 transfers made from 2007 to 2010.

However, the panel of judges said that Visca could serve her sentence under house arrest.

“The defendant has shown a good attitude during the trial process and has two toddlers,” she said.

The embezzlement saga, which was a major blow to Citibank’s reputation in the country, arose when 34 of Malinda’s premium clients complained money had been transferred out of their accounts in amounts ranging from Rp 20 million to Rp 1.4 billion.

Investigations discovered that Malinda had carried out 117 illegal transactions, 64 of which were in local currency and 53 of which were in US dollars.

The embezzlement crime, along with the death of a Citibank customer after meeting with debt collectors, prompted Bank Indonesia (BI) to impose strict sanctions on Citibank in May last year. BI banned Citibank from recruiting new premium customers for one year and barred it from issuing new credit cards for two years. (lfr)