News

Name suppression has been lifted for the former University of Otago accounts manager who admitted to stealing almost $240,000 from the University over seven years. Graeme “Petty Cash” Pettitt has pleaded guilty to eight charges of accessing the university’s electronic accounting system between March 2005 and March 2012, and is now remanded in custody until sentencing on October 23.

The police summary of facts says Pettitt used a fictitious creditor called Hadaad Syndicate to make 72 fraudulent payments to himself, totalling $238,846.61. The dollar values of the payments were irregular, ranging from $645 to $9982.01, and the payments were made systematically, usually monthly or every second month.

When interviewed by Police, Pettitt said that he started taking money from a control account with $100,000 in it, which no one knew about. As well as invoicing various university departments for postage they had already been charged for, he also created a fake journal to transfer money into a suspense account from which he paid the fictitious creditor.

Anne Stevens, Counsel for Pettit, has said that Pettitt is being treated for a gambling addiction, and has given up his superannuation and put his house on the market in an attempt to service the debt toward the University. However, Judge Stephen Coyle remarked that the suggestion that home detention would be an appropriate penalty would be a “quantum leap” given that the sum stolen was in excess of $200,000. There was a distinct possibility of imprisonment and Judge Coyle was satisfied that bail was not necessary to assist the sale of Pettitt’s home.

The University declined to comment until sentencing on October 23, “because the matter is before the courts”.

Pettitt remarked that he was embarrassed about what he had done after admitting to police that he took the money to service his own gambling debts. However, Critic suspects that he was taking the money to buy a solid gold lawn bowls ball for the Men’s National Championship Singles in 2011. Sadly, Pettitt was eliminated in the first round, proving that his form on the green is about as good as his form on the red and black of the Roulette table.

Critic’s extensive Googling revealed that Pettitt may have been running a few other scams on the side that he is yet to face justice for. The anti-spam website “Project Honey Pot” has a record of a suspicious email sent from Pettitt’s University address (graeme.pettitt@stonebow.otago.ac.nz). The “from” column reads “Intercourse” and the subject is “Blood flow to the penis”. Seems legit.