Fraudster stole £900,000 from council to gamble
Highways officer then fled to USA to become ‘medium’
AWORKER in Birmingham City Council’s highways department stole over £900,000 in a massive fraud and then fled to the USA to become a ‘psychic medium’. Tyler Evans carried out the massive crime to fund a gambling habit, Birmingham Crown Court was told. Evans, 42, of no fixed address, admitted fraud by abuse of position of trust and money laundering, and was jailed for four years and eight months.
Raj Punia, prosecuting, said Evans began working for the city council in 2005 and was employed in various departments before, in 2010, he moved to the council’s highways team in the role of customer engagement officer.
His job involved dealing with refunds of deposits paid to contractors once works had been completed.
She said Evans went on long term sick leave in September 2013 and was dismissed in April 2014.
Payment anomalies were found and it was discovered he had submitted 35 false forms to his managers which resulted in 35 payments being authorised which were paid into 10 separate bank accounts.
Ms Punia said the total value of the fraud was £906,084 and that it took place over a three-year period between 2010 and 2013.
“It was planned and sophisticated with false documents produced to managers in order that the bank payments would be authorised,” she said.
Money was sent to accounts in Evans’s own name, his business account called Paranormal Activities as well those of friends and associates.
Multiple transactions were then made with the money being transferred in order to make it harder for the original source to be detected. Evans made false and fake documents as part of the verification process.
The amounts he fraudulently transferred ranged from £7,000 to a final one of £83,250.
Ms Punia added: “As a result of the defendant’s fraud suspicion also fell on a line manager who was suspended pending an investigation but was later exonerated.”
She said Evans had been extradited from the US in December last year.
Judge Richard Bond said it was an aggravating feature that suspicion had fallen on someone else and that what he had done “had a real effect on other people”.
He said: “There was an element of fleeing the jurisdiction because you knew what you had done. You are an intelligent man.
“You knew eventually the balloon would go up and you would be arrested.
“By removing yourself from the jurisdiction you were able, over many years, to lead a normal life and have a loving relationship with a partner in the US.”
Robert Tolhurst, defending, said at the time of the offences a woman he viewed as a mother figure, who worked at the council, had died from cancer.
He was not happy in his department and he had also developed a serious gambling addiction.
He said of the money Evans received from the fraud about 80% of it he had lost on gambling.
He told the court: “He took advantage of the situation he found himself in to fund a gambling addiction.”
Evans had remained in the UK for about two years before going to the United States with around $10,000 dollars
He settled in Pennsylvania where he worked on paranormal events working seven days a week.