The Singapore police yesterday announced that charges have been filed against Geoffery Owen Cassidy, the former managing director of aircraft charter company Zetta Jet and director of Asia Aviation Co., for alleged embezzlement and other criminal conduct that occurred between 2014 and 2017. In all, the police cite charges of up to 34 alleged offenses that could culminate in decades of prison time. AIN was not able to immediately reach Cassidy for comment.
Charges include allegedly misappropriating more than S$11 million ($7.6 million) from Zetta Jet between 2016 and 2017; using more than S$1.4 million of the misappropriated funds for property-related expenditures; “cheating a company,” AirLNG, into delivering more than $400,000 to Asia Aviation on five occasions between April 2014 and May 2015; and having employees forge invoices and falsify accounts. If convicted, these charges range in prison time of up to 10 years each and/or fines.
In connection with the activities, the police charged June Tang Kim Choo, a director of Zetta Jet between 2015 and 2017, for allegedly “fail[ing] to use reasonable diligence in the discharge of the duties of her office, by authorizing payments totaling more than S$5 million without ascertaining whether the payments were for the company’s purposes.”
Singapore-based Zetta Jet went bankrupt in late 2017 after just a few years in operation. It had grown quickly with an all-Bombardier-owned large-cabin fleet and stretched internationally, including a U.S. subsidiary, Zetta Jet USA, that came with the merger of Advanced Air Management.
Zetta Jet PTE and its U.S.-based company USA had ousted Cassidy and hoped to save the company through U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but a district court denied the reorganization financing petition, forcing the company into liquidation.
Company officials had filed a lawsuit against Cassidy for alleged "wrongful and illegal conduct," and at the time Cassidy had objected, maintaining he still was a majority owner of the company and calling bankruptcy avoidable and the situation unacceptable.