A Gulf War veteran convicted of laundering nearly £37,000 in Aberdeen has been spared a jail sentence.
During a three-day trial at Aberdeen Sheriff Court, Steven Carle told jurors that a man posing as a fellow soldier had tricked him into handling thousands of pounds of illicit cash.
The former Royal Engineer told the court he set up a business bank account to help a “brother-in-arms” hide money from his estranged wife.
He claimed that although he knew the money was in his account, he had no idea it was “ill-gotten gains”.
But, a jury of 10 women and five men took two hours to convict Carle of concealing or removing almost £37,000 in cash from the account over three days after it was obtained illicitly through fraud.
The 45-year-old had pleaded not guilty and claimed he did not know, nor did he have a reasonable belief, that the cash was a product of criminal activity.
The court heard the ex-soldier, who has post-traumatic stress disorder, was asked to set up a business bank account in his own name by a man called Michael whom he met in a city-centre pub in 2011.
Carle said that after a number of meetings in the pub, the man asked him to open a bank account so he could hide the profits of his engineering company from his estranged wife.
However, the cash had been obtained fraudulently from four people who believed they were buying shares in a company.
This morning Sheriff Graeme Napier ordered Carle to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work in the community – the maximum hours he could impose.
He also put him on a curfew at his address in Banchory for the next six months and place him under supervision for the next two years.
Speaking after court this morning Carle said he was glad the ordeal was now over and hoped this would allow him to move on with his life.