A former Bermuda Housing Corporation property officer swindled the organisation out of almost $1 million in order to enjoy a luxury lifestyle, it was alleged yesterday.

A jury was told that Terrence Smith masterminded an 18-month con by instructing a carpenter who carried out renovation work on Corporation homes to prepare overpriced invoices totalling $1.3 million.

Smith, 45, is said by the Crown to have raked in more than $600,000 in cash and had more than $290,000 of work on his home paid for through what the prosecutor branded a ?monstrous fraud?.

Consultant to the Department of Public Prosecutions Kulandra Ratneser claimed that Smith approved numerous overpayments to carpenter Steven Barbosa, in the knowledge that the invoices were false. After Smith signed off the invoices ? some of them amounting to tens of thousands of dollars ? cheques would be paid out of the BHC coffers to Mr. Barbosa who then passed back the ?profits? to Smith, Mr. Ratneser alleged.

The Supreme Court jury is set to hear evidence from more than 40 witnesses. Mr. Ratneser said they would tell how Smith received cash by the bundle from Mr. Barbosa, and furnished his Tee Street, Devonshire, home out of BHC funds.

He opened the case by explaining that the jurors will examine invoices, purchase orders and bank statements relating to the 46 charges of obtaining property by false pretences that Smith faces spanning September, 2000 to February, 2002.

?This case is not about two bodies hanging from a tree or anything like that. There?s going to be lots and lots of paperwork,? he warned, before beginning to take them through the 400-plus documents they will consider.

Mr. Ratneser said Mr. Barbosa ? who ran a one-man business called Barbosa Carpentry and Construction ? will give give key evidence.

He explained that the carpenter met Smith in August, 2000 and Smith invited him first to do work on his Tee Street house and later to do renovations on BHC homes.

He said Barbosa would testify that he prepared ?overpriced? invoices for BHC work at the request of Smith. These showed requests for greater sums of money than the work was worth.

On some occasions, said Mr. Ratneser, Smith not only signed off invoices knowing the value declared on them was fictitious but that they were fabricated and Mr. Barbosa had not done the work.

After BHC made the overpayments to the carpenter, the Crown alleges that the carpenter would split the cash with Smith, keeping the cost of the job for himself and passing the balance to Smith in cash or services.

Mr. Ratneser read out a list of some of the Tee Street bills allegedly paid for with the BHC money. These included almost $100,000 for landscaping, $20,000 for a staircase and more than $5,000 for a fountain.

He said witnesses will tell of the large sums of cash that Smith had at his disposal during the period in question and how he would splash out on ?expensive wines, lunches and golf clubs?.

Mr. Ratneser told the jury: ?You may have appreciated from what I have said that Mr. Barbosa provided the false invoices which Smith used to defraud BHC. You might come to the conclusion that Barbosa knew he was aiding Smith in committing the offence and was therefore a participant in the offence.?

He said that it is the Crown?s position that there is ample evidence to support Barbosa?s claims to have shared the money from the false invoices with Smith.

Mr. Ratneser concluded his opening statement by alleging that BHC was induced by Smith to pay a total sum of $1,386,349 in cheques to Barbosa between September, 2000 and February, 2002.

Of this, the carpenter is said to have retained $428,043 as his payment for the jobs, paid $290,263 to suppliers for goods and services for Tee Street and gave Smith $634,404 in cash.

?That?s how Smith was able to build a house with six bathrooms? alleged Mr. Ratneser.

The court heard how the BHC saga came to light in March 2002 and following an internal investigation a number of officers were suspended including finance manager Robert Clifford, general manager Raymonde Dill, and Smith.

Smith denies all of the charges against him, and the case, which is set to last for up to eight weeks, continues.