Pretend attorney is off roll, but legal troubles multiply
A CAPE Town lawyer accused of stealing millions of rands from insolvent estates has lost his robes — which he may not have been legally entitled to in the first place.
The man, who goes by three names — Patel Muhamed, Mohamed Ismail and Muhamed Ismail Patel — could also soon find himself in the dock to answer to fraud charges.
He is accused of contriving his qualifications by assuming the identity of lawyer Patel Muhamed, who died in 2006, and duping the high court into admitting him as an attorney in 2011.
The man claimed that he qualified with a BProc degree from the University of the Western Cape. After the university denied conferring the degree on him, the Cape Law Society lodged an application in the High Court in Cape Town to have him struck from the roll of attorneys. It succeeded in February.
Frank Dorey, the director of the Cape Law Society, told the Sunday Times this week: “The practice of the Cape Law Society is to refer the court papers and court order in matters such as this one to the law enforcement TAKE YOUR PICK: Patel Muhamed, Mohamed Ismail or Muhamed Ismail Patel authorities for investigation.”
An application for the final sequestration of the man’s estate is set down for April 18.
The high court ordered the man’s provisional sequestration in December in an application brought by Sivalutchmee Moodliar, a trustee of the insolvent estate of the Coe Family Trust. The man was a joint trustee of the estate in which Absa’s proven claim is over R17-million.
Moodliar accused the man of misappropriating R9.3-million from the insolvent estate and of stealing R8.7-million from the estate’s bank account.
The provisional trustees of the man’s estate seized his two properties in Club Mykonos, Langebaan, and his home in Rylands, as well as furniture. They also seized his Jaguar and a boat in Hout Bay harbour.
He failed to appear in court — or send a lawyer to represent him.
“A person who steals money and behaves fraudulently in whatsoever capacity is not a person who can be allowed to remain on the roll of attorneys,” the high court ruled. “In the circumstances we are satisfied that the [man] is not a fit and proper person to practise as an attorney, that his name be struck off the roll of attorneys of this court.”
The man did not respond to questions sent to him this week.
Earlier this year, Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande said “serious action would be taken against perpetrators of fake qualifications, including prosecuting and publicly naming and shaming those caught doing so”. At the end of January, a total of 1 276 qualifications were recorded on the South African Qualifications Authority’s list of misrepresented qualifications.