Nigerian national, Bernard Ayanbanjo, of Waverley Road, Woolwich, and Pavon-Navarrete, of Bardsley Lane, Greenwich, will be sentenced on October 11 as he was found guilty on two counts of fraud.
He has been convicted of cashing over £30,000 worth of cheques stolen from illusionist Derren Brown. Bernard Ayanbanjo, 48, was given the cheques by Brown's cleaner, who admitted theft yesterday.
He
took the cheques, worth £21,550.35 and £11,500, from Rocio
Pavon-Navarrete, 47, and paid them into his own bank account between
October and December 2010.
The cheques were signed by James Cooper, Mr Brown's
manager, but were left blank and stored at his home in Baker Street,
central London for use by his assistant while Brown and Mr Cooper were
away on business.
During the two-day trial the jury were read an
excerpt from Ayanbanjo's police interview, during which he claimed the
cleaner asked him to cash the cheques as payment for building and
repairing a sign for her shop, named Nice 'n' Cheap, in Greenwich, and
then pay her back the balance.
He said he did not question the source of the first cheque, but did briefly consider the second one.
"I did think this time about the cheque, but I didn't give it too much thought because I needed payment," he told police.
But
Bethan Charnley, prosecuting, told the court: "Any right thinking
person would immediately think, that isn't right, there's something
strange here and you would need a lot of convincing before you took that
cheque and put it in your bank account."
She added: "It's not
plausible, it's not likely and it's simply not possible that Mr
Ayanbanjo was acting honestly and that he was entitled to present that
cheque as he did."