UK News - Lawyer guilty of swindling Mitsubishi

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Lawyer guilty of swindling Mitsubishi

LONDON (UPI) -- A London lawyer was convicted Tuesday of conning her employer, Tokyo Mitsubishi, out of millions of pounds in letters of credit to a friend's airline.

Jurors in Southwark Crown Court deliberated for less than three hours before finding Kate Johns, 39, guilty, The Daily Mail reported.

On the witness stand, Johns, former deputy head of Mitsubishi's legal department, said she thought she was following the wishes of her boss, Yoshinobu Onishi, head of Mitsubishi Bank's European Division. She said she believed lending money to Air Efata, a three-airplane business running tourist flights from Indonesia to the Seychelles, would strengthen Mitsubishi's relationship with the Bank of Seychelles.

Johns arranged for $11 million in letters of credit to Efata and pocketed several million herself, using the money to pay off her mortgage, get breast implants and buy diamond earrings.

Investigators have said they believe Frank Taira-Supit, the Efata chief executive, did not realize Johns was breaking the law. He took his own life after the airline went bankrupt.

Johns was allowed to remain free on bail until her sentencing in December.

Copyright 2009 by United Press International

This news arrived on: 10/21/2009

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