help support her family was given a break in Supreme Court this week.

Chief Justice the Hon. Mr. Justice Ward said he believed Lindell Charmee Williams, 20, who pleaded guilty to the offence, was "exploited''.

The two men she committed the crimes for had paid her $100 for each illegal foreign currency exchange transaction which she got away with.

Williams was 17-years-old at the time she committed the offence, Supreme Court heard.

Noting her clean record, cooperation with Police and inability to pay a large fine, Mr. Justice Ward placed her on one year probation.

But he warned her if she fell back into the company of the "evil people'' who landed her in trouble, she would be brought back before him and given a harsher sentence.

Mr. Attride-Stirling said Williams had felt she had a moral obligation to support her younger sisters who were living in Israel with her parents in poor circumstances.

She had been under "tremendous financial pressures'', he said.

He pointed out she had taken major steps to further her education, completing a computer course locally. And she was now living with her grandparents in Warwick.

She had made a mistake and had taken real steps to make up for it, he said, asking for a conditional discharge.

But Mr. Justice Ward said discharging Williams would be an "irrational'' step.

Stating the facts, Crown counsel Mr. Khamisi Tokunbo said that in April, 1992, Police acting on information received stopped a vehicle she was in and found two copies of Bermuda Monetary Authority forms.

Further investigations uncovered that Williams had gone to local banks on 11 different occasions between August 8, 1991 and April 2 1992, sometimes making two transactions a day.

She falsely stated on her BMA forms that she needed the money for travel abroad. However, she never went overseas on the dates specified. And she failed to surrender the cash she obtained to the banks.

After she was arrested, Mr. Tokunbo said she told Police she changed the money for two men, Delton Burchall and Luke Hill. And they paid her around $100 a transaction.

A social inquiry report revealed that Williams was uprooted and moved to Israel when she was young. She was only 17 when she returned to Bermuda without her family.