City secretary jailed for seven years after bosses defrauded of £7 million

A TOP City secretary who fleeced her bank bosses out of nearly £7 million was jailed for seven years yesterday.

Jealous Joyti De-Laurey, who even stole £16,000 from her mother during her trial, was branded by the judge as "duplicitous, deceitful and thoroughly dishonest".

Judge Christopher Elwen told her that it was clear "lying is woven into the fabric of your being".

London's Southwark Crown Court heard she used the "plundered" cash to mimic the luxury lifestyle enjoyed by the trusting Goldman Sachs managing directors she worked for.

The 35-year-old whose husband got an 18-month prison sentence and mother six months suspended for two years for helping launder her ill-gotten gains - carried out her "betrayal" behind a smokescreen of efficiency and imaginary cancer.

De-Laurey, a mother-of-one even wrote "bizarre" letters to God, begging for a further "helping of what's mine" and pleading for protection.

Instead she was arrested just weeks before she and her family were due to start a new life in a luxury £750,000 seafront villa in Cyprus. By that time, she had splashed out nearly £400,000 on diamond encrusted Cartier jewellery, spent a fortune on designer clothes, showered relatives and friends with cars, gifts, homes and holidays, and tried to keep her conscience at bay with £10,000 donations to charity.

Had she remained free she would have taken delivery of a £150,000 power boat and a £175,000 Aston Martin V12 Vanquish she had ordered.

Privately educated De-Laurey, of London Road, North Cheam, Surrey, claimed her American bosses, husband and wife Jennifer Moses and Ron Beller, and their even wealthier successor Edward Scott Mead, let her milk their millions as a reward for her abilities. In particular, she insisted, the latter allowed her free rein over his New York investment account for helping him keep office hours assignations with a secret mistress.

But despite her protestations of innocence she was convicted at an earlier trial of 14 charges of obtaining money transfers by deception, and six of using "false instruments" with intent between February 15, 2001 and April 26, 2002.

Looking haggard after six weeks in prison while awaiting sentence, De-Laurey stared straight, unblinkingly ahead as the judge made it clear what he thought of her.

"You embarked on a spree of conspicuous consumption and dispensing of largesse of such magnitude that nobody close to you can have had other than, at the very least, the gravest suspicions as to the sources of this spending power."

They "especially" included her 50-year-old husband, Anthony, and her GP mother, Dr Devi Schahhou, aged 68.

The judge said the evidence against her had been "overwhelming".