Durban – A Queensburgh brother and sister facing 2 500 counts of fraud and one of unlawfully conducting the business of a bank, were given a lifeline by a Durban magistrate.
Defence counsel, advocate Jimmy Howse, asked Durban Regional Court magistrate Siphiwe Hlophe for an adjournment this week, to allow his clients time to raise money to pay his fees.
State advocate Khumbuzile Shazi vehemently opposed this application, saying witnesses have been waiting more than 10 years to hear what happened to their investments.
“They now have to wait yet again,” she argued.
Mervin Rodney Dennis and his sister, Mary-Ann Peters, pleaded not guilty at the start of their trial in February this year.
It is alleged that the sequestrated businessman and his sister ran Global Investments, and invested only about R4.9 million of the approximately R138.9m received, on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).
The rest of the money was apparently used to repay existing investors and allegedly spent by Dennis on gambling, jewellery and payments to motor dealerships.
Many of these investors were teachers who had taken retirement packages, pensioners and businessmen, as well as people who entrusted Dennis with their life savings.
He was sequestrated in May 2005, and in that year more than 800 investors lodged about R70m in claims against his insolvent estate.
According to the charge sheet, Dennis started Global Investments in 1998, and allegedly promised investors their money would be invested on the JSE.
In 2003, the South African Revenue Service (Sars) conducted an audit on the company and the investment club’s bank account was frozen.
The State alleges that to keep the funds flowing in, Peters opened a bank account in the company’s name and deposits from new investors were then diverted to this account.
Interest payments to investors were said to be made from this account through cheques apparently issued by Peters…..
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