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A serial fraudster, who impersonated an attorney and falsified court records to scam individuals seeking legal services, has lost her appeal at the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court.
The 30-year-old Jordanian was sentenced to three years in prison in October, and was fined BD1,000, having earlier been found guilty of similar charges in multiple trials.
Judges had also ruled to deport her after completing her sentence, despite her earlier telling the court that she was the only living parent to her son, after her Bahraini husband died.
The court heard that the appellant was employed as a secretary at a legal firm, but used the firm’s name and legitimacy to deceive clients for profit by pretending to be a lawyer.
In February 2023, she was convicted of exploiting the same legal firm’s name to defraud potential customers and was sentenced to a year in prison, a ruling that was upheld upon appeal.
Before that, the woman was sentenced to six months in jail for concealing funds, and fraud.
Even after two criminal trials, she once again fell into trouble with the law when a Pakistani client reported her to authorities, accusing her of taking his money and never completing the service he paid for.
The man, who runs a company specialised in issuing tourists’ visas, needed help resolving some problems he faced when it came to issuing residency permits.
A friend of his had recommended the appellant, and he got in touch with her, paying her BD110. She eventually told him that the issue was solved, and sent him an official payment receipt.
He said he later found out that the receipt was fake, and when confronted about it, the Jordanian woman reportedly owned up to not being a real lawyer.
Upon examining the falsified receipt, a forgery expert stated that the serial number on the record belonged to a real transaction, but that the data on the document has been completely altered.
The GDN earlier reported that the Jordanian woman was charged with falsifying an official, digital record and claiming that it was issued by the ministry, with the intention of using it to ‘obscure the truth’.
The Public Prosecution further charged her with using the falsified record while knowing that it is not legitimate, though she vehemently denied committing the crime.
She was also charged with keeping an amount entrusted by a client – the Pakistani man – for herself and harming this person in the process.
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