Santa Maria Michele Theresa, 56-years-old, was fined $14,000 after pleading guilty to 4 charges of failing to pay a foreign employee under her charge.
She had failed to pay her maid’s salary for 13 months, with the total amount owed being $6,500.
Another 9 charges for similar offences were considered for her sentencing.
What happened?
Santa hired a maid from the Philippines, Emferatriz Borja Montefolka, from 2013 to 2019. She then failed to pay the maid her salary of $500 for 13 months between the months of April 2018 to April 2019.
Santa has yet to make any restitution to the maid to date, but the prosecution isn’t seeking compensation because the maid was also facing charges over illegal employment.
Montefolka was allegedly hired by another employer, Noraliza Kamardin, without a valid working pass between August 2019 to April 2019 – that case is still pending, at the time of writing.
Santa’s defence lawyer said that she initially decided against continuing to employ Montefolka after the death of her (Santa) father whom the maid was taking care of.
The maid was in the Philippines on holiday at the time, was told by Santa not to come home because she didn’t need her services.
The maid then pleaded with Santa to take her back, to which Santa agreed to send her a ticket to return to Singapore.
Santa didn’t think that she had broken the law at the time, according to her defence lawyer, who added that she didn’t mistreat the maid.
The prosecution agreed that it wasn’t an act of exploitation but said that Santa should have known better as she had employed maids before.
The judge also agreed that there was no exploitation but there was a clear breach of employment conditions because she didn’t pay the maid her salary.
Santa was then fined $14,000, and she will have to serve 40 days in prison if she cannot pay the fine.