Tammy Maree Buckley committed 200+ acts of fraud to steal $846k from Paget business

A Paget worker declared she had lost her memory days after she was busted embezzling almost $1m from a family-owned business. The court heard there were more than 200 transactions. Read why she did it.

A Paget admin worker claimed to have amnesia after she was busted embezzling almost $1m from a family-run business and spent it on online gambling.

Tammy Maree Buckley was an admin assistant at All Jack and Paints, where she had access to the company’s main bank account.

Crown prosecutor Samantha O’Rourke told Mackay District Court the 49 year old opened a personal bank account to swindle funds from the Iridium Dr business over a 12-month period.

About six months after beginning her employment, Buckley would substitute her own bank account with creditors, processing false business expense transactions, and deleting entries from the software to hide her crimes.

At the end of the month, when accounts were reconciled, she would delete fraudulent entries.

In total, Buckley stole $846,680.84 from June 21, 2018 to June 13, 2019, across 202 different transactions.

Two days after her crime was reported to police, Buckley appeared in hospital and told staff she had lost her memory from 2016 onwards.

Judge Julie Dick said she did not necessarily believe the claim of lost memory.

Ms O’Rourke told Mackay District Court Buckley used a “vast majority” of the stolen funds to gamble on different phone apps.

Some days, Buckley would gamble thousands of dollars on the gaming applications.

Tammy Maree Buckley would spend thousands of dollars a day on a simulated slot machine app. Picture: Contributed

Defence barrister Matt Heelan told the court the gaming app simulated slot machines, with the game not offering an ability to withdraw any money.

“She stood to win nothing,” he said.

“It simulates the experience of gambling, like being in a casino.

“The player buys tokens, and with those tokens can play the game and win more tokens.

“Those tokens just enable the player to continue on with the game, and there is no way to win real money.”

Judge Dick said the fraud Buckley committed was a planned attack on the business.

“Fraud is a different category,” she said.

“You’ve got to think about it, plan it and perpetrate it.

“You did that, and you did that more than 200 times.

“I don’t think there’s any family company that can truly withstand losing almost $1 million.”

Judge Dick said she was not sure if it was more immoral to steal money for gaming or paying off incurred debts.

Buckley pleaded guilty to the fraud charge, and was sentenced to six and a half years with immediate parole eligibility because she had already served 910 days in custody on remand.