A brother and sister who tried to defraud their siblings in their dead mother's will have been warned by a judge to expect jail.
Adjourning passing sentence on David Lauro (50) and his 43-year-old sister Elaine Lauro at Craigavon Crown Court, Judge Patrick Lynch QC said their offences “strikes at the very heart and foundation of decent family values.”
Remanding David Lauro into custody and freeing his sister on bail until Friday, the judge warned her that she should use the time “to make suitable arrangements for your children.”
At an earlier hearing both Mr Lauro, a Scout leader from Hollybrook Grove in Newtownabbey and his sister, from Lough Moss Park, Carryduff, pleaded guilty to a count of fraud by false representation in that on February 26, 2016, they told their siblings their deceased mother Anne Lauro “had signed an original will dated 27 December 2015.”
Mother-of-three Elaine Lauro also confessed to a further offence of using a false instrument, namely a cheque for £167,000, with intent to induce Santander to accept it as genuine, a day earlier on February 25.
Opening the prosecution case, PPS counsel Nicola Auret confirmed that fraudulent cheque, written six days after Mrs Anne Lauro died from cancer, “would have cleared out” her account.
She described how the defendants “called a family meeting” on February 28, 2016 when they showed their three siblings, a sister and two brothers, “a document which they claimed was the will of their dead mother.”
Ms Auret said the purported will set the defendants as executors and while it outlined there were properties and money to be divided among them, “in particular it was stated that the deceased’s business, Kavanagh’s, a long standing operating business, was to be given to the two defendants.”
It also bequeathed to Elaine Lauro a property in Co. Sligo valued at £154,000 and to David Lauro, a property in Co. Leitrim valued at £31,000.
The lawyer told the court that eight months later, in October 2016, the PSNI received a report from Mark Lauro “his suspicions that the signature on the will had been forged,” thus sparking their criminal investigations.
His sister Diane Aston made a similar statement “that she didn’t believe the signature was her mother's” so detectives seized the will purported to have been signed by Mrs Lauro along with other documents which she had genuinely signed.
The police enquires also uncovered the cheque for £167,000 and Ms Auret said that after the will and all the other documents had been given to a forensic hand writing expert, “he concluded that the signatures on both the will and the cheque were forged.”
The brother and sister were both questioned by police in 2017 but they denied any fraud had taken place.
Elaine Lauro claimed her mother suffered from arthritis so she had written some things out for her but that Mrs Lauro “always signed the documents.”
She admitted lodging the £167,000 cheque which the bank had stopped but told police it had been her mother’s wish and claimed “she didn’t realise” she was wrong to lodge it after her death.
David Lauro claimed his mother had read the will “aloud and after this, he said he saw his mother sign it” before he signed as a witness.
Defence counsel Patrick Taylor, acting on behalf of Mr Lauro, conceded the fraud represented “an egregious breach of trust” but that “I tentatively invite you to give some credence that there is a ring of truth to the assertion from the defendant that it was his mother’s wish that he and Elaine receive the business.”
He said that along with his sister, the father-of-five were the only two siblings who worked in Kavanagh’s, adding that while Mr Lauro maintains it was his mother’s wish to hand the business to the defendants, “he now accepts that this amount to a fraud....he had convinced himself he was acting to carry out his mother’s wishes.”
Conor Lunney, defence counsel for Elaine Lauro said the offences had caused an “irrevocable split” in the family and he sought to argue that given the “unusual background” to the case, coupled with the fact that she is a single mother of three, it was an exceptional case despite the breach of trust.
“It’s no surprise to hear that she’s extremely concerned about the prospect of going to prison,” said the lawyer who further conceded that his client “was the prime mover in relation to both signatures.”
Judge Lynch adjourned passing sentence to Friday.