In the case of Johanna Petronella Laas, known to her friends as Hannetjie Laas, versus the State; Johanna Petronella Laas has entered a plea of ‘not guilty’ to the charges of theft brought against her.
She appeared in the Witbank Magistrates Court on Tuesday, January 8.
The State alleges that between 2012 and 2016, Mrs Laas stole just short of R900 000 from her employer by cooking the business’s books.
Mrs Laas had been employed as a personal assistant, and was partially responsible for capturing the business’s financial transactions in its ledgers and journals.
Her employer alleges that he realized that one of his employees had been stealing from him after he received only four cash payments from Mrs Laas over a 12 month period.
During the State’s cross-examination of Mrs Laas’s employer, the court heard how upon being confronted by her employer regarding the discrepancies in her own bank reconciliation, Mrs Laas burst into tears and admitted that she was aware that her bank reconciliation could not be a true account of the business’s dealings because it did not correlate with the business’s journals.
Mrs Laas’s employer alleges that when he asked Mrs Laas why she stole from him; she told him
“I don’t know.”
The court has been adjourned and the case will roll-over to tomorrow, Wednesday, January 9.
Tomorrow the case will kick-off with Mrs Laas’s employer being presented for cross-examination to the defence.
The minimum sentence Mrs Laas is facing, should she be found guilty, would be 15 years’ imprisonment.
