Charges against attorney withdrawn

CHARGES of fraud, forgery and uttering were withdrawn against a Durban attorney in the Commercial Crime Court on Tuesday.

Durban businessman Marco Accolla was arrested first and charged in September last year, while his attorney, Rakesh Maharaj, was arrested later that month.

According to the charge sheet, it was alleged the pair had made misrepresentations to the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission, as well as the Master of the High Court, in June 2014.

This was apparently due to Nadeem Arshad, said to be Maharaj’s client, being falsely listed as Noella and Rosario CC’s creditor.

Accolla is a member of the close corporation, along with businesswoman Rosanne Noella Narandas.

It was also alleged that Accolla misrepresented that he had lent the CC R5 million and was entitled to repayment, but was apparently deprived of this by Narandas.

The charge sheet stated that this misrepresentation had caused Narandas an actual prejudice of R5m.

The forgery and uttering charges related to the pair allegedly forging a document, a nomination form, for Narandas to sign, to her prejudice.

Bail

Both men were released on R5 000 bail each, and their legal counsel had subsequently made representations to the State, which consisted of three lever-arch files.

At a pre-trial conference in May, the State said it was ready to go to trial and had intended calling six witnesses.

The defence were expected to call about five witnesses, and the matter was set down for trial this week.

At their court appearance in July, all charges were withdrawn against Accolla, and the charge of fraud was withdrawn against Maharaj.

Yesterday, the State withdrew the charges of forgery and uttering against Maharaj.

The National Prosecuting Authority in KZN was asked on Tuesday the reason for the charges being withdrawn, but by yesterday afternoon still had not responded to the Daily News query. noelene.barbeau@inl.co.za

@noeleneb