Jealousy makes you… guilty of crimen injuria

A FORMER candidate attorney who “had a fixation” with a senior partner in a prominent Cape Town law firm has been found guilty of multiple charges, including fraud, crimen injuria and intimidation.

Pravina Walabh, 33, of Observatory, in Cape Town, appeared in the Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Bellville yesterday, before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg.

She was found guilty on 24 counts of fraud, five of sending out false information on the internet, with intent that the recipients react to it, three of crimen injuria, one of intimidation, one violation of the Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act, and an offence relating to her unauthorised access to, interception of or interference with data.

The court declared most of the charges proven beyond reasonable doubt, by prosecutor Juan Agulhas.

The proceedings were suddenly disrupted as Walabh collapsed in the dock. The court adjourned as Walabh’s family revived her.

The case was postponed to October 25, when the prosecutor and defence attorney, Reaz Khan, will address the court in sentencing proceedings.

In her judgment, the magistrate said Walabh, at the time a candidate attorney with the Cape Town law firm MacRobert Incorporated, had developed a fixation with one of the senior partners, who had become engaged to an attorney at another firm.

As a candidate attorney, Walabh had been keen to attend court proceedings, but her supervisor, the object of her fixation, kept allocating cases to another candidate attorney instead of to her, which had upset Walabh.

The charges related mainly to Facebook posts, e-mails and SMS messages and, according to the charge sheet, her method of operation was to create false Facebook profiles for her supervisor and his fiancée.

The profiles portrayed the couple as being interested in “adult activities”, and disclosed their contact details.

As a result, the two victims received internet approaches from strangers responding to their statuses.

According to the charge sheet, Walabh tried to “friend” some of the victims’ friends on Facebook and subscribed the couple to e-mail newsletters.

She was arrested in September 2012, after which they received no further e-mails.

The magistrate ruled that the only reasonable inference to be drawn was that Walabh was responsible. – ANA