RAMIREZ: EAST INDIA CLUB TREASURER STOLE £500,000
The treasurer of an exclusive gentleman’s club faces jail today (Tue) after transferring more than half a million pounds of the venue’s funds into his own bank account.
Alfonso Ramirez, 44, swindled the East India Club, in London’s exclusive St James’s district, out of £553,129.52 over a four-year period while its accounts manager.
He transferred £536,600 into his private bank account from the special interest account of the East India Club between January 2010 and January this year.
Ramirez then defrauded a further £16,529.52 from the private members’ venue by overpaying his own salary between January and December last year.
Wearing a blue waterproof coat over a butterscotch shirt, Ramirez appeared at Southwark Crown Court today (Tue) to plead guilty to two count of fraud by abuse of position.
Judge Anthony Dinkin adjourned Ramirez’s sentencing until September 23 so that pre sentence reports on the fraudster could be completed.
He said: ‘I am satisfied, in view of the potential prison sentence, that it would be right to have pre-sentence reports completed in case there are any background matters that are brought to the courts attention’.
Granting Ramirez bail, Judge Dinkin added: ‘I will adjourn sentence until September 23 at 10am and I indicate from what I have read that a significant custodial sentence is going to be appropriate in this case.
‘But I will leave all sentencing options open to the sentencing judge, whoever that is’.
Mizan Abdulrouf, defending, said that Ramirez committed the four-year fraud because of his gambling addiction.
The East India Club, on 16 St. James’s Square, was founded in 1849 for servicemen who had served in British India.
It boasts a gym, billiards room and 66 bedrooms for its all-male membership.
Its most notable member is politician and former Olympic gold medallist Sebastian Coe.
Ramirez, of (69) Cambeys Road, Dagenham, Essex, admitted two counts of fraud by abuse of position.
He will return to court for his sentencing on September 23.
ends
