Man cleared of misappropriating mother's inheritance

A court has declared a 39-year-old Attard man innocent of misappropriating LM7000 (€16,305) from his mother.

Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera had heard how Carmela Tabone had filed a criminal complaint against her son Joseph in 2007, alleging that he was refusing to return LM7000 that she had entrusted him with safekeeping.

Carmela Tabone, who has since passed away, had testified that she had inherited the sum and given the money to her son, Joseph to “keep them safe until she would need them.” She had claimed that he had twice refused to return the money; once when she asked for it to buy her house from her landlord, and once when she “needed it to pay for her pills”.

However from the testimony of the landlord and family members of the accused, it transpired that the house was never actually offered for sale and that the complaint had been filed at the instigation of Carmela’s other son, Luciano. On the contrary, the landlord testified that eviction proceedings were underway against Luciano.

The accused told the court that at one point, his brother Luciano had been trying to suggest that his mother was insane but was subsequently found to have been an attempt to cover up the fact that he had stolen from his mother. He said that his mother was afraid of Luciano and would obey him out of fear.

The third sibling, a sister testified that the mother gave the money to the accused to keep and that Luciano could not be trusted around the house, was lazy and had a gambling problem, a fact corroborated by Luciano’s ex-wife “Joseph was given the money to help him out and not on loan, as he was careful with money, unlike Luciano”.

The ex-wife testified that Carmela was effectively forced to report Joseph to the police by Luciano, as she needed him, Carmela being in her 70s and in frail health.

The court, having considered the evidence, felt that the accusations of misappropriation were not proved beyond reasonable doubt and declared him innocent.

Michael and Lucio Scriha represented Joseph Tabone. Inspector Ivan Cilia prosecuted.