ROELIEN ‘Lientjie’ Vera Roux (33), the former financial manager accused of embezzling a total of R5 628 046.07 from the Southcoast Mall, appeared in the Port Shepstone Regional Court last Friday.
Mrs Roux was to be sentenced last year but Magistrate Johann Bester postponed the case in order to obtain a report from a social worker in Rustenburg where Mrs Roux, her husband and two small children are currently living.
The state and defence counsel agreed with the court that since the interests of the two small children had to be considered by the court, it was essential to obtain such a report.
Although a report from the social worker was provided to the court, Magistrate Bester said he did not find it helpful as it was unable to indicate what he really wanted to know.
Magistrate Bester granted a postponement date so that a psychologist’s report could be obtained as it would determine the impact of the possible sentence. The case was postponed to Friday, March 28.
Mrs Roux was convicted on 75 counts of fraud and 75 counts of money laundering last year. She pleaded guilty to the charges, while the charges against her husband Frederick Roux (34) and mother Mathilda Remona Botha (52) were dropped. She is currently out on bail.
During the period of August 2009 to January 2012 Mrs Roux was employed as a financial manager for Hyprop Investments Limited, a company which is co-owner of the Southcoast Mall and which manages the mall on behalf of its owners.
The court found that she had used various methods to defraud the company of amounts ranging from R3100 to R300 000. She created fictitious invoices and other documents and misled the company into believing the amounts were payable to debtors.
She would then pretend to effect payment to those debtors while she was in truth paying substantial amounts either into her own bank account or those of her husband and her mother. A total of R5 628 046.07 was stolen from Hyprop in this way.
The convictions for the 75 counts of money laundering stemmed from her dishonest movement of the monies to other bank accounts and the manner of her concealment of it. The court also heard that large sums of money were withdrawn over a period of time and used for gambling.
