A day after she was detained in Coimbatore, lottery baron Santiago Martin’s wife Leema Rose was remanded in judicial custody by a court here on Saturday after police interrogation for allegedly submitting fake documents in court in connection with the seizure of unaccounted money.
Rose was interrogated at the Thousand Lights Police Station for hours and later produced before the city court, which remanded her in judicial custody for 15 days. She was subsequently lodged at Puzhal prison.
The investigation was aimed at establishing her role in the preparation of forged sale deeds that were executed for the purchase of a property from one of the accused in the case.
The sale deed agreement that was executed on a stamp paper was dated March 2, 2012 whereas the serial number of the stamp paper was released only on March 9, 2012.
This was confirmed by the treasury department, which maintains the serial numbers of the stamp papers.
The sale deed was also not registered because of the discrepancy in date, the police said.
Rose allegedly admitted during interrogation that the sale deed did have her signature. However, she could not identify the other signatures on the document.
After establishing that the papers were fake, the police altered the sections under which the original case was filed to include charges of forgery against the accused.
On March 3, 2012, the city police had seized unaccounted money to the tune of `7.2 crore from the residence of one Nagarajan from Thillai Nagar in Arumbakkam and `50 lakh from his partner Murthy - Martin’s close friend - from the latter’s residence in Anna Nagar.
According to a senior police officer, the accused had forged the documents to legalise the money they had obtained through the sale of lottery.
“The genuineness of the documents was checked, which brought up the date discrepancy,” he added.