Chopped sue-y | 

Financial officer who stole €82k from Irish health food chain Chopped motivated by ‘pure greed’

Health food chain owner tells how financial controller and family friend betrayed trust and stole thousands

Sun 23 Jul 2023 at 13:30

A financial controller who stole €82,000 from health food chain Chopped Ireland Limited was motivated by nothing other than ‘pure greed’ – the company’s founder Brian Lee has told the Sunday World.

On Thursday, the chain’s former Chief Financial Officer Mairead Latimer was exposed as a serial thief who stole tens of thousands of euros from Chopped during her 18-month-tenure as the helm of the company’s accounts.

The glamorous 35-year-old, the wife of a former business partner of Mr Lee’s, admitted before Dublin Circuit Court to stealing the money from the chain through a myriad of deceptive practices – including payouts to ghost employees, inflating her own wages, collecting cash from outlets and stuffing her own pension.

A disgusted Mr Lee said afterwards that it is now his sincere hope that the penalty handed down to Latimer will fit the gravity of her crime.

“Today’s proceedings are another important step on a long journey,” he said. “We now wait for October 13 for sentencing and hope that the right punishment is dealt out for this crime.

“People will call it white collar crime and try to dress it up as something less bad than pickpocketing or stealing from shops.

“These criminals will say it’s a victimless crime stealing from a business, but in my book stealing is stealing and it’s disgusting.

“There needs to be a better system for deterring this crime and allowing them to continue to steal and embezzle from hard working Irish business people. I’m talking to you today so we can shine a light on these criminals.”

Mr Lee told the Sunday World that one of the most hurtful features of Latimer’s theft was the breach of trust the thefts represented as she was a trusted family friend as well as an employee of the chain he founded in 2012.

“This is not a big American company that came into Ireland,” he said.

“This is an Irish company that started with one outlet and we grew from there through hard work. Then she came into us and she couldn’t help herself … it was pure greed.

“Worst of all, this is a person who is the wife of a former business partner of mine in a gym I used to own. I gave her the position in Chopped in good faith based on that.

“She was at the christening of my first born child. She was all innocent and sweet. She bought him a birthday card for his first birthday with a personalised picture of him.

“All of these things led me to believe she was someone I could trust. But she was like Inventing Anna (a fraudster who posed as a wealthy German heiress).

“All sweetness and innocence on the outside – but pure poison on the inside.”

At Thursday’s hearing, Latimer (35), of Corr Castle, Howth, Co. Dublin, pleaded guilty to a total of four counts of stealing money from Chopped between December 2016 and July 2018. She has no previous convictions.

Detective Garda Declan O’Carolan outlined how during this period Latimer stole money in four different ways from Chopped.

He said she made payments to ghost employees, with over €43,000 going into her father’s account.

She authorised inflated wage payments to herself of over €12,000 that had not been approved by the directors.

She took over €22,000 from a Chopped shop on Grafton Street and in Lucan and also authorised more than €3,000 in the form of increased pension payments to her own pension plan.

The court heard that Latimer has paid back €73,546 to Chopped Limited with a further €7,852 outstanding.

The scam only came to light in July 2018 when one of the company’s two directors was looking at staff rotas and wage payments.

He saw that they were paying an employee who was not rostered anywhere. He asked Latimer to investigate and said he wanted answers the following week.

The following week, Latimer confessed to making up the ghost employee and claimed this was the extent of her actions.

She offered to work at a reduced rate until the money was paid back. Due to the breach of trust, Chopped ended her employment on August 1, 2018.

Latimer subsequently wrote a handwritten letter to the directors saying that she would pay back the money.

The court heard that Chopped began their own internal investigation and asked Latimer for her bank statements.

She gave them bank statements, which turned out to be fake.

Managers from two Chopped shops also gave statements outlining that on a number of occasions, Latimer told them there was a problem with the usual secure cash pick-up and that she would be collecting the money.

In August 2018, Latimer was arrested after she attended a garda interview by appointment. She was cooperative, answered questions and made admissions to the gardaí.

Det Gda O’Carolan agreed with Dominic McGinn SC, defending, that Latimer had paid back over 90 per cent of the money to Chopped.

The garda also agreed with counsel that Latimer is now in employment elsewhere and also volunteers with a crisis text line.

Mr McGinn said his client is married and has a stepchild.

Latimer’s husband, the court heard, is in full-time education and she is the main breadwinner.

He said that her mother also suffers from Parkinson’s disease and needs to be brought in for medical appointments by her daughter.

He submitted that Latimer is extremely unlikely to re-offend in the future and asked the court to take note of the probation report.

He said Latimer has “lived her life in a law-abiding way, except for this incident”.

He also asked the court to take into account how dependent Latimer’s mother is on her and her husband and stepchild.​

Judge Martina Baxter said that she required more material evidence from the defence that supports their claims in the form of bank statements for Latimer and other paperwork.

She adjourned for finalisation until October 13.

Chopped founder Mr Lee said he is glad Latimer, whose married name is Doody, has for now been publicly exposed as a fraudster.

“I believe it is important for other business owners that her name is out there and people will be aware of the kind of person she really is,” he said.

“And I want to pay tribute to the work done by Det Gda Declan O’Carolan…

It’s because of his efforts and hard work that five years after she committed these crimes, she is not being called to account for what she did.”