‘Well-liked’ Worksop fraudster kept job after first scam exposed before embezzling £43K more
A "well-liked" Worksop fraudster who was allowed to keep his job after swindling £5,000 went on to embezzle a further £43,000 before his dishonesty was exposed, a court heard.
Oskar Lysak, a junior buyer at Force Contracting Services, helped himself to £5,400 on a company credit card over one week in March 2024, said Jack Ferdinando, prosecuting.
When his bosses at the civil engineering firm confronted him Lysak admitted taking the money to support his gambling problem.
But because he was well-liked and had been there for three-and-a-half-years, they allowed him to stay on and repay what he owed at £400 per month.
Lysak, who was 21 at the time, still owed the firm £2,000 when a second, more serious fraud was uncovered in December that year, said Mr Ferdinando.
Concerns were raised when he asked a colleague to process a payment using a false company name for goods that were never delivered or received.
He also doctored bank details from a legitimate company and falsified authorisation emails from senior managers.
Alarm bells rang when he took the next day off work - just as he had after the first fraud was discovered.
An investigation revealed £43,378 had been transferred to his bank account between July and September 2024.
Steve Williams, mitigating, said Lysak, of previous good character, admitted the frauds at the first opportunity.
"He sought help and has now been free of his gambling problem for over a year,” he said. "He has let himself down and his father down. He is determined to repay that support. He now has a new job which doesn't involve finances. There is a genuine prospect of rehabilitation."
Lysak, aged 23, of Woodhouse Close, Rhodesia, admitted fraud by abuse of position and fraud by false representation when he appeared at Mansfield Magistrates Court on August 25.
"For a company to put a very young man with a gambling addiction in such a position of financial responsibility was probably asking a little too much," said Recorder Ruth Coffey on Tuesday, October 20.
Lysak received a 12-month sentence, suspended for 18 months, with a probation requirement and 100 hours of unpaid work.
She said it was up to him whether he used his capacity for persuasion "honestly and to good purposes," or otherwise, in the future.