Chief Magistrate Joyann Ferguson-Pratt has remanded two corrections officers to prison after they admitted to participating in a sick slip scam.
Police arrested and charged Mercette Pinder, dressed in blue and yellow jacket, and Aryett Lightbourne, in the Puma hoodie, after Commissioner of Prisons Charles Murphy questioned the authenticity of the sick slips they’d presented to justify time off.
The men fraudulently received full pay after presenting the fraudulent sick certificates. During their interviews, both men claimed that they got the sick slips from nurses at Princess Margaret Hospital.
Pinder claimed that he paid a nurse $15 for his first sick certificate and $25 for the second one.
However, Lightbourne didn’t reveal how much he paid for his.
Both men pleaded guilty to uttering forged documents and fraud by false pretenses at their arraignment this afternoon.
The Chief Magistrate will hear sentencing arguments from their lawyers on Thursday morning before she passes judgment.
Chief Magistrate Ferguson-Pratt denied a request from the Prison Staff Association President to have the officers remanded to a police station instead of the prison.
She said she didn’t have the authority to do so.