Former Fiji Squash national representative Justin Ho has received a suspended sentence from the Magistrate’s Court in Nadi. According to an update from FICAC, Ho pleaded guilty to an amended charge involving a false or misleading document on September 10, 2020.
Details presented by the prosecution indicated that Ho submitted two Tax Identification Numbers (TIN) belonging to private individuals to a senior customs officer to facilitate the release of a consignment, fully aware that the information was false.
Ho’s defense highlighted that he was only tasked with retrieving the consignment. Resident magistrate Talei Kean remarked that ignorance of the law cannot be used to justify one’s actions.
Initially, Ho was sentenced to 18 months in prison. However, considering the mitigating circumstances and his voluntary guilty plea, the court reduced the sentence to nine months, which has been fully suspended for three years.
The court took into account that Ho is a first-time offender with a previously clean record, his age at the time of the offense, and the absence of any financial loss to the government entity, which outweighed the necessity for a custodial sentence as a deterrent.