A REGISTERED tax agent who narrowly avoided jail last year after she stole more than $240,000 from a Hunter transport company while the owner was battling cancer has pleaded guilty to another $200,000 fraud relating to a separate company owned by the same man.
Kylee Suzanne Pryor, who is represented by solicitor John Anthony, pleaded guilty to three counts of dishonestly obtain financial advantage by deception in Toronto Local Court on Tuesday.
Pryor, now 49, of Cameron Park, did not enter a plea to a charge of destroy or conceal accounting records to obtain an advantage. The matters were adjourned to June 16.
Pryor is currently serving a two-and-a-half year intensive corrections order and undertaking 500 hours of community service after she successfully appealed against a maximum 12-month jail term for defrauding Medowie-based company Farrell Transport of more than $240,000 between 2011 and 2017.
The fraud offences she admitted on Tuesday relate to Farrell Transport and a business known as Metal and Steel Haulage, which were both owned by Michael Farrell, and occurred during the same period. Pryor was employed by Valley Accounting and Taxation Services (VATS) from 1989 until 2017 and during that time was tasked with conducting the bookkeeping for Mr Farrell's businesses.
When Mr Farrell stopped operating Metal and Steel Haulage in 2004 he believed that the business account would be closed down and all trade would continue through Farrell Transport.
Instead, between 2011 and 2016 Pryor made 178 electronic transactions and funneled $201,000 from Farrell Transport into Metal and Steel Haulage and then into several of her own personal accounts.
The Metal and Steel Haulage frauds were detected only after Pryor was asked to resign in relation to the Farrell Transport frauds.
In 2000, when Mr Farrell was diagnosed with cancer and had to be hospitalised, he made Pryor the sole signatory of the business account hoping it would keep his business afloat.
But unfortunately for Mr Farrell, Pryor abused that trust. An investigation revealed between March 4, 2011, and July 28, 2017, a total of $241,160 was electronically transferred from Farrell Transport's business account into Pryor's personal bank accounts.
