Partner's Wife Stole $160K to Fund Slots Addiction
The 63-year-old spouse of a former senior partner at a British law firm has been jailed, and her husband has lost his job over the nearly $160,000 she reportedly stole from clients to fund a gambling addiction.
Although solicitor Kim Orton repaid all the money stolen by his wife, Susanne, with interest, a Bournemouth Crown Court judge said he had no choice but to give her a 10-month jail term over the lengthy deception involved, writes the Daily Mail, a United Kingdom newspaper. She worked as a conveyancing assistant at the Harold G. Walker law firm in Bournemouth at which her husband was a senior partner. Kim Orton wasn’t charged, but he nonetheless lost his job.
“Mr. Orton thought his wife went to bingo to help her relieve the stress and had no idea she was spending so much on slot machines,” the newspaper says. It says she blew through about $200,000 of the couple’s own money before she stared to steal from law firm clients to fund her addiction and conceal her prior gambling losses from her husband.
