HOOK, LINE AND SINKER

After avoiding jail for nearly a decade thanks to endless appeals and petitions, a slippery schemer finally runs out of wriggle room

It turns out that perpetrators of small-time fraud and corruption are just as slippery as the big timers — the presidents, ministers, drunken judges and foreign families — when it comes to dodging jail.

Eastern Cape businessman Roydon Rudman and his coaccused faced 28 counts of fraud and one of contravening the Banks Act. Small cheese, perhaps, but this mouse knows how to wriggle. offered finance to members confirmed by the SANDF as in line for severance packages and who were also Absa account holders. Each SANDF member offered finance by Makana would sign a debit order for the bank to transfer the severance package to Rudman’s business once this was paid out by the SANDF. It was all quite secure.

Rudman promised the four people he hooked that they would earn a percentage on each transaction and be repaid their capital investment in full.

But, as Rudman well knew, the CC did not provide bridging finance to SANDF members. Nor was Absa involved with debiting these accounts. Nor, unfortunately for investors, would they get a return on their money — though this emerged only after they had invested more than R3m between August 2001 and April 2002.

In March 2008 the court acquitted Rudman’s coaccused on all charges, but convicted him. It was not the first time either — he has a 1991 conviction for nine counts of fraud.

After his 2008 conviction, Rudman began a series of legal challenges to delay imprisonment. First, he asked the court to review and set aside the trial on the basis that he had “incompetent legal representation”. When he lost that challenge, he appealed, but was unsuccessful once again. In August 2012 he was finally sentenced to an effective nine years.

Next, he applied for leave to appeal the sentence. The trial court refused, but he petitioned the judge president, who granted him leave to appeal. By that time he had served 11 months of his nine years, and he was released on bail pending the outcome of the appeal against the sentence.

Once out, he applied to the trial court for leave to appeal against conviction, but that was refused. Then he petitioned the judge president, but was also refused. Similarly, he applied for leave to appeal to the supreme court of appeal and then to the constitutional court, all without success.

Run out of rope

After all those delays, his appeal against sentence was argued last month — nearly 10 years after he was convicted.

The full bench that heard the appeal has now confirmed his sentence, but there are twists that make for interesting reading. One of these was Rudman’s attempts to characterise himself as a reformed person: he has established a new business that is doing well, employing many people and uplifting the local community.

But the judges were not impressed. Quoting long-established law, they pointed out that they could only take into account factors already in existence at the time the sentence was originally imposed.

Though Rudman might try a further appeal against sentence, it seems he has reached the end of his options. He managed to evade prison for 10 years with comparatively limited resources.

That’s nothing: once state capture trials begin, those criminals, infinitely better funded, will surely keep the courts busy with appeals until mid-century.