A former employee of a Jamaican investment firm who reportedly confessed to swiping millions of dollars from Olympic sprinter Usain Bolt’s account asked Bolt for help repaying funds from other clients she swindled, according to company officials.
Jean-Ann Panton, the woman behind the financial scandal that has drawn international attention to a Jamaican securities firm, reportedly told her employer last month that she took money from clients’ accounts to cover medical bills for her father and other family emergencies. She did not initially admit to dipping into the legendary athlete’s account.
However, according to a lengthy statement released by Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL), three days after Panton’s Jan. 7 confession, a representative for Bolt came to the office and said “an employee serving as client relationship manager” “had turned up at their offices to confess that she had falsified statements provided to them, had stolen money from them and other SSL clients, and was requesting help” from Bolt’s management team “to repay the clients whose funds she had stolen.”
Although the statement did not name Panton, Nationwide News reportedly obtained a copy of the sworn affidavit from the former employee admitting to stealing from the accounts. SSL said they did not know Bolt was involved until after the person from his management team came forward.
“It is believed that the reasons that she did not initially confess to defrauding this particular client are (1) she was aware of the tremendous spotlight which the Bolt name would bring to bear on her activities, and (2) amazingly, she, for whatever reason, and despite having admitted to the Bolt management team that Dr, the Hon Usain Bolt was among her victims, apparently still believed that she could borrow the money from the Bolt management group to repay the other SSL clients,” the statement says.
SSL representatives said the client services manager bypassed…
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