An IT manager who defrauded his employers of nearly £19m to fund a gambling addiction only has assets worth £600,000 left.
Leeds Crown Court heard today financial confiscation proceedings against Jonathan Revill had been agreed and will involve the sale of the home in Huddersfield for which he paid £500,000 in cash.
Revill’s benefit from criminal activity was recorded at £18,976,602.63 with his realisable assets set at £608,909.61.
Mehran Nassiri prosecuting asked for that figure to be confiscated and paid in compensation to Revill’s employers GDF Suez Ltd.
It was agreed that Revill be given six months to pay some of that figure £515,000 from the property in Marsh Lane, Shepley and £21,000 from an investment in Turkey. The rest has already been seized or consent forms signed which the financial officers can realise.
Judge Christopher Batty told Revill: “Make sure it is paid, if not it will four years in prison in default.”
Revill, 38, was jailed for seven years last August after he admitted four charges of fraud and three of transferring criminal property.
The court heard he was employed as a service delivery systems manager at a Leeds subsidiary of GDF Suez, one of the world’s biggest energy companies with a billion pound turnover.
He was earning a £55,000 a year salary with bonuses and a £400 a month car allowance but had a “serious addiction to gambling”.
Less than a year after he started working for the firm he realised he could place orders that would not be noticed.
Although he was limited to a £3,000 purchases without further approval he forged signatures and over the next three years ordered £18,976,062.63 worth of equipment.
That was delivered either to his home in Huddersfield or to storage unit and quickly sold for less than its value either on E-bay or to six different companies.
Revill’s dishonesty only came to light earlier this year when an audit revealed financial irregularities by then he had gambled away nearly all of the £5.6m he made from the sales. The only asset now left is his £500,000 house.
Even when he was bailed while police inquiries were continuing he spent £22,500 on further gambling on tennis and football.
Sentencing him Judge Geoffrey Marson QC said “In three years you used 104 invoices to order property to the value of almost £19m. It is a vast amount of money.”
“You were addicted to gambling, all the money has gone on gambling save for your house which you will now lose.”
Ben Hargreaves representing Revill said he was made bankrupt in 2005 and was then out of work for four months and got into debt before he joined GDF Suez Energy UK in 2009. He quickly realised there was an opportunity for him to be dishonest.
He said it was a simple fraud “not ingenuous” involving him creating invoices and forging signatures on them. The items were sent to his home or the yellow Storage Box Company in Leeds from which he tried to sell them quickly taking a loss of some 70 per cent on the cost.
“The money has been spent on gambling, that is his tragic downfall.”
He said Revill had tried to win big to pay back the company and at one time had £3m in his account “trying to get myself out of the hole I’d dug” but that had gone.
He was relieved to be finally caught and was shocked at the total involved.
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