Woman gets 30-month jail term for fifth fraud conviction
A woman who witnessed her boyfriend being murdered in 2008 has been sentenced to 30 months in jail for fraud and identity theft offences.
Ripy Kaur Jubbal, 47, pleaded guilty in March 2019 to six counts involving the fraudulent use of credit cards and credit card data or information.
From September 2016 to January 2017, Jubbal and Karmjit Singh Tiwana, her spouse at the time, were responsible for 345 fraudulent credit card purchases or services acquired, amounting to more than $80,000 in fraud.
According to an agreed statement of facts, the identities of 19 victims were used to open fraudulent accounts, and credit card numbers were gathered and used for online purchases.
The credit cards were assigned by financial institutions to individuals who themselves reported that they have been victimized by identity theft, said the statement filed as an exhibit.
The two offenders used the victims' names or personal ID for their own personal benefit and the fraudulently obtained credit cards were used at multiple businesses.
Tiwana, who had no prior criminal record, received a conditional sentence order of two years less a day to be served in the community.
But court heard that Jubbal was convicted in 2004 of fraud, receiving a conditional sentence order of four months. She was again convicted of fraud in 2008, as well as possession of stolen property and breach of a recognizance, and again received a conditional sentence.
In 2009, Jubbal was convicted of fraud for a third time and received a nine-month jail term. A fourth conviction for fraud, along with credit card and stolen identity offences, resulted in a 30-month jail term being imposed in 2011.
The sentencing hearing was told that after her first marriage broke down after eight years, Jubbal began a relationship with a man that ended when he was murdered in their Surrey townhouse in 2008. Jubbal witnessed the fatal shooting and then jumped from a third-floor window, falling onto a concrete patio and breaking her arm.
She was a long-term user of crystal methamphetamine and at the time of the most recent credit card offences was a daily user of that drug.
Her lawyer argued that a conditional sentence should be imposed, but B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kenneth Ball found that such a sentence would not be appropriate for an accused with a significant record of offences resulting in escalating sentences.
“Aggravating circumstances in this case include a very organized and methodical theft of financial information of victims, which deliberately damaged those victims and their community over a long period of time, specifically, five months and 345 transactions,” said the judge.
Jubbal received the 30-month jail term sought by the Crown but will have her sentence cut by 6½ months after receiving credit for pre-sentence custody.