Oates Jailed For 2.5 Years, Must Repay $200K
Cedric Oates, 42, an American citizen working in Bermuda, was today [Jan 31] sent to prison for two and a half years for using false statements to induce a teacher to invest her life savings in a real estate scheme.
In a Supreme Court trial, Cedric Oates had been found guilty of making statements he knew to be false or misleading to induce Dianne Laird, a Canadian physical education teacher working in Bermuda, to invest $345,000 over a three-month period in 2009.
Ms Laird had said that she had invested her life savings in the scheme after she had been promised that she would see her initial investment returned within a matter of months. To date, she has not seen a single penny of her investment returned.
Ms Laird and Mr Oates became friends in 2008 while she was training with the women’s Bermuda basketball team, and Mr Oates was an assistant coach.
At today’s sentencing, Crown Prosecutor Nicole Smith told Justice Charlene Scott that Oates should be sentenced to between 4 and 5 years for the offence – which carried a maximum sentence of seven years.
Defence lawyer Charles Richardson argued for a lesser sentence saying that Mr Oates had no previous offences and that by not insisting on proofs of investment, Ms Laird had, by omission, abetted the fraud; and that this needed to be recognized.
Justice Scott ordered Oates to return $200,000 of the $345,000 that was taken and ordered that this money should be released as soon as possible.
Time already served by Mr Oates will be taken into consideration.
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and kick his thieving ass out of Bermuda when he is released!
That frog should be ordered to return ALL her money! He lied.
For a so called educated woman ….. He worked her greed nerve . However , he should be made to pay back every penny , with interest .
always here things like that, but the reality will be how? does he have that in savings? all this bad rep, no job comin out of jail? Maybe a $100 a week payment to her for the rest of his life? Anybody clear on his options when you think it all the way through.
Just a hunch, but my guess is lonelyness and the need to be wanted are the nerves he struck.
Unbelievable . . . but kill a baby and do community service . . . REALLY????
u kno wat um sayin?! backwards! smoke some herb, get more time den her! lmfao wat a joke
And remember there is a guy in jail on remand for killing a dog
If it sounds too good to be true then it’s not. Either way Oates was wrong and he got what he deserved.
Guess his work permit just got extended….
He will be deported upon his release and hopefully the $105,000.00 that is frozen in his account will be released and go into Ms. Lairds account…..
I totally agree that what he did was wrong and unethical and maybe even immoral, but the end result is that she is not a victim . . .she knew what she was doing and was looking for a get rich quick scheme. She went against her fiance’s advice and wishes. Had the deal gone through as planned, she would have been smiling all the way to the bank and we wouldn’t have heard a darn thing about it!!!!
Of course she was a victim, because he was a predator! He gained her trust first, then screwed her over. Don’t judge unless you have walked a mile in somebody else’s shoes.
Things are often not as they appear.
I spent a considerable amount of the trial (simply out of interest; I have no connection to either party), and therefore heard and saw far more that took place than what was, or could have been, reported in the press. There did seem to be something dodgy going on, but for Oates to have been found criminally guilty as charged came as a surprise to me based on the evidence.
I agree with much of what ‘Unjust Realities’ says above, especially the get rich quick part. Yup, if the deal had gone through as planned the lady concerned would have been smiling, laughing and skipping to the bank and would have had no complaints whatsoever about being ‘induced’ to part with her money.
Was Oates some sort of investment adviser or property specialist? No – he is a teacher just like Laird. From what I saw Ms. Laird was well placed to MAKE UP HER OWN MIND on what to do with her money yet has placed all the blame on Oates (they didn’t bother to go after the other guy in the States, named as Michael Hopkins, who most of the money was actually transferred to and who Ms. Laird admitted meeting).
The jury found Oates guilty, and he will remain so until and unless he successfully appeals, but again based on what I personally observed I remain surprised. I repeat that this is not based on knowing or siding with either party, just on what I saw and heard.
this case stinks,,like rotton fish !
Wow, he has to pay back $200,000 to her. Will he have to pay $200,000 to the tax payers for housing his @$$ for 2.5 years?!?
Not likely just as all those Bermudians in jail in the UK won’t pay theirs either.
She will never see the $200K still owed. After his lawyers get paid, how much of the money frozen in his acct will she get? He will get out of jail, get sent back to the US, then what? She has to persue him him there? At what cost to her?
A sad story.
Deported on release?? Deport him now and save our tax dollars, while i dont agree with what the woman giving her money up he needs to be taught a lesson and this also sends a message to the scammers in Bermuda
Let me get this one straight – lock him up for 2.5 years – and pay a $200,000 fine
[1] 2.5 years in Westgate Hotel will cost $ 250,000
[2] How the Hexx is he going to pay the money if he’s locked up – not unless he has it in an account here.
I think we got screwed on this one.———dumb dumb Judge!
Its shameful. Send both of them back home and stop wasting our tax payers money and clogging up the justice system.
I Find it Funny how he is being locked up for 2.5 for getting a grown ass woman to invest her money into a scheme yet perverts and molestors get a year or less!!! Not condoning what he did but be foreal this a#s gave in he didnt steal from her; like previously stated she was warned and shes only mad because it did not go as planned! Get Ya Life we got rapists and murders walking round and you lots mad at Oates?! Send him back to his country that it and start worrying about the real s$%t that is happening in our island