Appealing her innocence, the 'monster' asserted that she still 'got a job' as promised.

On December 23, the High People's Court opened a criminal appeal trial for defendant Ngo Thi Oanh (born 1969), residing in Hung Dong commune (Vinh city) for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".

According to the indictment, because they knew each other before, Oanh and Nguyen Thi Hang (born in 1985), residing in Le Loi ward, discussed and agreed to receive documents and money to "apply for jobs" at hospitals and the Hematology and Blood Transfusion Center in Nghe An province. The two subjects agreed and agreed: Oanh was responsible for finding and receiving documents and money from workers, while Hang was responsible for contacting to "apply for jobs".

During the period from 2014 to 2018, to gain the trust of the victims, when approached, Oanh "bragged" that she personally knew the leaders of the Department of Health of Nghe An province and promised that she would definitely get workers in need to work at hospitals and the Hematology and Blood Transfusion Center in the province.

In addition, Oanh also discussed and agreed with Nguyen Thi Thuy (born in 1975), residing in Hung Loc commune, an agricultural extension officer at the Vinh City Agricultural Extension Station, to find workers so that Oanh could “find jobs” for them. However, by the time they were discovered and arrested, all three subjects had failed to find jobs for any of the cases as they had previously “committed” to the victims.

Defendant Ngo Thi Oanh at trial. Photo: An Quynh.

Specifically, around 2014, through an acquaintance, Doan Thi Le N. residing in Hong Son Ward (Vinh City) asked Oanh to contact N. to apply for a job. To gain trust, Oanh told N. that she knew the leaders of the Department of Health, so she could apply for other people to work at hospitals in the area.

After discussing and trusting what Oanh had committed from 2014 to 2017, Ms. N. continuously gave money and documents to Oanh to ask her to help her find jobs for 10 people. However, after receiving money and 10 job application documents from N., Oanh was not able to find jobs for any of them as promised.

After a long time of waiting without seeing any notification of employment as previously promised, the job seekers urged and demanded the above amount of money back.

On April 24, 2017, Ms. N. and Oanh agreed that the amount of money Oanh received from N. to find jobs for the 10 workers mentioned above was 1.154 billion VND. After that, Oanh paid Ms. N. a total of 726 million VND, still owing 428 million VND. During the investigation, Oanh and Hang compensated Ms. N. with an additional 100 million VND. Therefore, at the trial, Ms. N. requested Oanh to return the 328 million VND that Oanh had appropriated from her.

By the above tricks, the group ofNgo Thi Oanhcommitted 10 frauds with a total amount of money embezzled of more than 2.749 billion VND. Of which, Hang participated in 6 frauds with an amount of money embezzled of 420 million VND; Thuy participated in 1 fraud with an amount of money embezzled of 210 million VND. Among the victims, the person who was defrauded of the most money was Ms. Doan Thi Le N. with an amount of more than 1.1 billion VND.

Previously, the People's Court of Nghe An province brought the case and the three defendants Ngo Thi Oanh, Nguyen Thi Hang and Nguyen Thi Thuy to trial. However, during the debate, defendant Oanh asked the panel of judges for more time to compensate the victims and correct the mistakes she had made. To ensure the rights of the defendants and the objectivity of the trial, the panel of judges decided to temporarily suspend the trial.

At the next trial, defendant Oanh still did not pay additional compensation as she had committed in the previous trial. Meanwhile, defendant Thuy had recovered all the money she had defrauded and appropriated from the victims.

The first instance verdict sentenced defendant Ngo Thi Oanh to 10 years in prison; Nguyen Thi Hang to 3 years in prison; Nguyen Thi Thuy to 15 months in prison but with a suspended sentence for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".

However, defendant Ngo Thi Oanh claimed that she was wronged, so she appealed the first instance verdict, requesting the panel of judges to review the entire case. According to the defendant, she had asked for some victims to sign contracts at some hospitals as “promised”.

The panel of judges had to publish the response documents of the relevant agencies regarding the issues raised by Oanh. In these documents, the relevant authorities all confirmed that the names of the above victims were not included in the list of employees or long-term employment contracts of the unit.

Ngo Thi Oanh at the sentencing hearing. Photo: An Quynh.

However, Ngo Thi Oanh still believes that the above responses from the authorities are incorrect. “The defendant has text messages showing the recruitment, acceptance and work decisions of the above victims.” Although she affirmed that she had found jobs for some victims, Oanh could not explain why the victims “counter-accused” her of fraud to the authorities.

In addition, defendant Oanh argued that the money received from the victims was all received by defendant Hang, so she only had to bear part of the criminal responsibility. However, all of the above incidents had no documents or witnesses, so the panel of judges rejected them.

Considering the entire trial, because defendant Oanh did not have any new details and had not yet remedied any further damage to the victims, the High-level Court decided to uphold the sentence against Ngo Thi Oanh for the crime of "Fraudulent appropriation of property".