After the mother-of-two received a four-year prison sentence for stealing more than $178,000 from her workplace, the entire scope of a serial fraudster’s astounding crime spree was made public.
Kristi Anne Barden, a resident of Perth, billed her employer, an organization named Strategen that provides environmental consulting services, for opulent vacations and a rental car, and she continued to use a business laptop long after she was fired.
Before she was discovered, her fraud effort spanned a two and a half year period between 2017 and 2020.
On June 23, in Western Australia’s District Court, the self-described “functional alcoholic” entered a guilty plea to one theft charge and 47 fraud counts.
The 46-year-old was a senior administrator when she started fabricating invoices by replacing the business’ bank information with her own, according to court records obtained by Daily Mail Australia.
In spite of the fact that no field work was being done on the dates of her vacations, she claimed two stays at Seaspray Beach Holiday Park totaling more than $3000 and a $2800 stay at Redgum Village Dandaragan in regional Western Australia in 2019.
The next year, she deducted more than $2,700 from her paycheck for a staycation at Perth’s COMO The Treasury, a five-star hotel.
Despite not having permission, Barden hired a Mitsubishi ASX from Thrifty under her employer’s name.
She maintained the vehicle for a year after she was fired in October 2020.
After Strategen received a $28,000 charge for the hire, the automobile was reported as stolen.
However, when Thrifty contacted Barden about the situation, she claimed she had no involvement with the car because of her redundancy.
A month later, in February 2021, it was discovered abandoned with a damaged window.
As police were attending the scene, Barden approached them and requested if she could get her sunglasses out of the car.
She gave the cops the keys after lying to the authorities and telling them that she was given the option to keep the automobile as part of her redundancy settlement.
Investigators searched her Perth home and discovered an HP laptop that belonged to her work but that she was not permitted to keep after being fired.
In May of last year, Barden was detained on suspicion of stealing a total of $178,107.03 from Strategen.
Barden’s attorney, Roisin Keating, testified in court that Barden calls herself a “functional alcoholic” who abuses painkillers and drinks two bottles of wine every night to cope with the trauma of being in a violent relationship.
‘Ms Barden had started a relationship in the months prior to this crime, which was tragically plagued by physical and psychological abuse,’ Ms Keating said in court on June 23.
“That relationship terminated in 2018, but, as I said, Ms. Barden was left with enormous debts when it did,” your honor said.
According to Ms. Keating, Barden knew what she was doing was improper but reasoned, “I’m not going to get away with this, so I’ll just do it while I can,” after receiving two prison sentences for similar offenses in 2010 and 2013.
The offender “resorted to the offending to ease the sensations of stress and, it would appear from the representations presented here, also debt,” Judge Wendy Gillan said during the sentence process.
The court also described Barden’s difficult background and the hardships she faced as a young adult, including being homeschooled, growing up in a strict, religious household, and having few friends as a result.
She moved in with her grandparents as a young adult after leaving home, and she is still working on mending her ties to her immediate family.
Barden suffered a catastrophic vehicle accident when she was 18 that required her to relearn how to walk and communicate, but left her with ongoing back issues.
She was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after her first husband died in a terrible incident.
Although she and her second husband divorced, they still had a solid connection and had two adolescents together.
Although Barden never lost custody of her kids, the court heard that she routinely committed fraud against her job in order to support them.
Despite acknowledging Barden’s regret for her two-year fraud effort, Judge Gillan questioned how really sorry she could be in light of her previous history.
The judge stated, “I assume she felt sorry for that offense as well.”
How much does her regret actually mitigate the situation, even if I accept that she is sorry and am more than willing to do so?
Barden was informed by Judge Gillan that her crimes contained “serious dishonesty” and that she had abused her power inside the organization.
Because you’ve received psychiatric assistance in the past and it didn’t deter you on this time, she continued, “you will be a serious risk of reoffending.”
Though you will have to do that before you could – I could have found, actually, that you were at no risk of further offending in the future – it doesn’t mean that you aren’t capable of dealing with your concerns moving forward.
In order to return to the workforce after being released from prison, Barden planned to look for “menial employment,” which won’t require her to handle money or keep records.