A man who was “just too clever” in the way that he cheated his employer out of more than two million rands, has been jailed for six years.
|||Cape Town – A man who was “just too clever” in the way that he cheated his employer out of more than two million rands, was jailed for six years on Friday.
Arnold Dickson, 44, a former buyer at the company Vitafoam in Epping Industria in Cape Town, appeared in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg.
He was sentenced on 54 charges of fraud, treated as one, involving R2 257 766, as well as money laundering.
Dickson was to have pleaded guilty in plea-bargain proceedings, negotiated by defence attorney Liesl Vermaak with prosecutor Jannie Knipe.
However, he changed his mind and, instead, pleaded guilty but left it to the court to decide his punishment.
He qualified for the minimum sentence of 15 years jail for fraud involving more than R500,000, but the magistrate ruled that the fact that he had pleaded guilty and was a first-time offender, amounted to substantial and compelling circumstances that justified a less severe sentence.
Dickson told the court that he dreaded a jail sentence and claimed he would be more useful to the community out of prison, the magistrate said in passing sentence.
However, the magistrate said he had been “just too clever” in the way he had schemed the embezzlement.
She said 15 years was too severe in the circumstances, but that a suspended prison sentence was too lenient, as was correctional supervision involving a short period in prison, to then be released under house arrest. A third option, namely a fine, was out of the question, as he had no money.
His case resulted from a stock-take three years ago, in which the company’s stock-controller, Alysum Fourie, uncovered “certain irregularities”.
She confronted Dickson and then reported the irregularities to the company’s general manager, Etienne Brewis.
A second stock-take was done the next day, to verify the irregularities.
Dickson was absent during the second stock-take, but resigned the next day.
Dickson had been in cahoots with one of Vitafoam’s suppliers, Universal Distributors (UD), owned by Anette van Blommenstein (since deceased) to produce 54 fraudulent UD invoices for a total amount of R2 257 766.
The invoices were paid, and with each payment, Dickson received a 75 percent “kickback”, amounting in all to R900 000.
The magistrate likened Dickson to a modern-day Robin Hood, in the sense that he had given some of the money to people in need.
She said Dickson had falsely stated in court that he had made full disclosure of the fraud in his letter of resignation.
However, the employer denied this, she said.
She said Dickson had, in fact, “bitten the hand that fed him”.
On each of the two charges, fraud and money laundering, he was jailed for three years – not to run concurrently, the magistrate ordered.
“This means imprisonment for six years,” she told him.
He was also declared unfit to possess a firearm.
African News Agency