Pinay in UAE sentenced in absentia for stealing employer’s valuables

A United Arab Emirates court on Tuesday sentenced to three years' jail a Filipina babysitter accused of stealing her American employer's paintings and valuables worth Dh200,000.

The defendant, 33, who was sentenced in absentia, had claimed taking the valuables, clothes and games so she can donate them to the poor, Gulf News reported.

Dubai Court of First Instance Presiding judge Mohammad Jamal convicted the Filipina of stealing and ordered her deported once she serves her sentence.

Court records showed a Filipina housemaid discovered the defendant was stealing children’s clothes and games and other valuables from their sponsor’s house last September.

When the American sponsor confronted the babysitter, the defendant said she took the children’s clothes and games and other goods and offered them to poor children in the Philippines.

The American woman canceled the babysitter’s visa and sent her back to the recruitment agency that hired her.

But she then found out the defendant had taken valuables worth more than Dh300,000 during her four-year employment from 2010 to 2014.

“My other maid discovered children’s games and clothes and other items hidden in (the defendant's) bedroom. Accompanied by my lawyer and another witness, I entered (the defendant's) bedroom and discovered all the stolen items hidden in the cupboard. When I confronted her, she denied… but later she admitted that she had sent clothes and games to impoverished children in her homeland," the American sponsor said.

She said she then called her family in the US to ask them if they received the children’s clothes that she sent them, and was told that they had not arrived.

Also, she said she discovered that the defendant also stole a valuable painting, blankets, rugs, bed covers, gold, jewelry, clothes, and accessories.

Meanwhile, closed-circuit television cameras in the sponsor's house showed the defendant, her sister, and her sister's boyfriend may have been involved in the theft.

The sister and her boyfriend stood trial before the Dubai Misdemeanors Court for aiding and abetting the babysitter. —Joel Locsin/KBK, GMA News

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