Former Bermuda Housing Corporation worker Terrence Smith was last night found guilty of siphoning off more than $1.2 million of taxpayers? money from the organisation?s coffers.

Smith abused his position of responsibility as Property Officer to authorise fraudulent payments to a carpenter who submitted fictitious bills for his work.

The 45-year-old creamed off massive profits from the crooked enterprise, which he blew on living a life of luxury at his mansion in Tee Street, Devonshire.

The crime had been described by Consultant to the the Department of Public Prosecutions Kulandra Ratneser during the case as ?a monstrous fraud?.

After deliberating for almost eight hours, the jury found Smith guilty of 42 counts of obtaining property by false pretences and not guilty of three. The total amount of all the charges he had faced over the matter was more than $1.3 million.

Smith stood impassively in the dock as the verdicts were read out, and Chief Justice Richard Ground refused to grant him bail. The judge said: ?The jury has found him guilty of a large number of crimes, each of which is serious, and the cumulative effect is massively serious.?

Mr. Justice Ground said the public could lose confidence in the criminal justice system if Smith were granted bail, and added: ?He faces an almost inevitably substantial prison sentence.?

As Smith was taken away in a prison van, pending a sentencing hearing at a date to be arranged, family members including his wife Veronica gathered around it in tears.

The verdict had come after a 19-day trial that saw the jury hear from more than 40 witnesses and examine more than 400 documents.

The con man was brought to justice after Steven Barbosa, the carpenter who helped him pull off the scam, turned supergrass and testified against him. Under the promise of immunity from prosecution, Mr. Barbosa told the court how Smith instructed him to lie about the price of his work on the BHC?s homes on numerous occasions between September 2000 and February 2002. He instructed him how to file fictitious invoices, then signed them off, and told Mr. Barbosa to hand back the overpayments in wads of bank notes ? up to $40,000 at a time.

Among the extravagant purchases Smith is said to have made with the dirty cash were a $96,000 movie theatre for his home and a $10,000 fountain for his garden.

The court heard how Smith sometimes claimed to be the BHC General Manager and on other occasions posed as an architect when dealing with workmen.

His trial also heard how, when he was hauled before the BHC board of directors to explain himself after allegations of improprieties at BHC appeared in the press, he complained of victimisation because he is black.

?I have nothing to hide. If I was a white man I wouldn?t be attacked like this here, I know that,? he said at the time.

Members of BHC staff who signed off the payments after Smith ? including former Finance Manager Robert Clifford and former General Manager Raymonde Dill ? told the trial they had no suspicion that the invoices were fake.

However, prosecution and defence witnesses criticised Mr. Dill, who also held the role of Property Manager ? Smith?s immediate boss ? for much of the period of the fraud. Mr. Dill signed off many payments to Steven Barbosa at two stages in the process of anti-fraud checks since he held two positions ? a situation Mr. Ratneser dubbed that of ?the man with two hats?.

Mr. Ratneser had told the jury during his closing speech that this lack of checks and balances was how the crime came to be perpetrated by Smith.

?The whole of BHC was fooled by a man who knew the system. The system had failed because a man decided to wear two hats. That?s how the fraud was committed,? he said.

After the case, Mr. Ratneser revealed that the Police are planning to act under Proceeds of Crime legislation to strip Smith of the assets by which he profited from the fraud. This will not only focus on the BHC money that he pocketed in cash and goods, but also assets such as his luxury home. The Crown successfully applied under the Proceeds of Crime Act to have his assets ? including the house ? frozen in 2004.

Mr. Ratneser also confirmed that the two-year Police investigation into the fraud focused on others besides Smith. ?This did not produce sufficient evidence to justify a prosecution,? he said.

Nonetheless, he is certain that what is now publicly known about the BHC fraud is not the full story.

?We will never know what the extent of the fraud was. We are only at the tip of the iceberg. We don?t know how many other contractors acted in the same way as Steven Barbosa,? he said.

?People don?t usually come and tell you: ?I?ve given a kickback.? They are not going to put their neck out and come out with the criminal activity that they have performed.?

Larry Scott, the lawyer who defended Smith, said he needed chance to talk to his client before they decide whether to lodge an appeal.