Mischief Managed: JK Rowling Alleges She Was Scammed Out Of £24,000 By Her Personal Assistant
It's alleged Rowling's assistant spent more than £1,600 of the writer's funds on Starbucks, and £1,400 on luxury candles.
Harry Potter creator JK Rowling is suing her former PA for £24,000 ($43,042). To find its Harry Potter equivalent, it’s a little like how Peter Pettigrew betrayed his high school friends to Voldermort.
According to the legal claim, Amanda Donaldson abused her access to Rowling’s business card and stole a lot of HP-branded merchandise. As reported by the BBC, Donaldson worked for Rowling from February 2014 and April 2017, before being fired for misconduct — claims that Donaldson denies.
To break it down into a Harry Potter analogy, it’s kind of like when… um… Hermoine, Ron and Harry all steal pieces of hair in the Chamber Of Secrets for their polyjuice potion, except here the alleged embodiment of someone else is purely financial, rather than physical. Okay, so it’s loosely similar, but just trying to help any HP fans understand this non-HP event.
According to the legal papers, it’s alleged that Donaldson used Rowling’s business card for personal use: when discrepancies began to appear, she met with an accountant and was subsequently fired. For a Harry Potter counterpart, Gilderoy Lockheart was also fired from his job. Hope that helps!
Anyway, it’s alleged that Donaldson spent a lot of money, including £1,482 on luxury candles, £3,629 on cosmetics, £2,139 at a card shop, and £1,636 at Starbucks. Rowling also alleges Donaldson bought two cats, which cost £1,200 — cats are animals which are authorised pets at Hogwarts, the school that Harry Potter and his chums attend in the Harry Potter series. It’s unclear if the two are related at the moment.
Finally, Donaldson is accused of taking the equivalent of £7,742 of foreign money from Rowling’s safe, which evidently not as well-guarded as Gringotts. Perhaps Rowling was too distracted by post-hoc adding in representation into the Harry Potter universe to notice.
The case will continue in court later this year — we shall be following along with more fervour than Rita Skeeter chasing a lede.