Rohde’s financial battle for daughters -

CONVICTED murderer Jason Rohde will urgently apply for bail next week so that he can deal with a hostile business partner who is a threat to the financial security of his daughters.

“I respectfully submit that in the interests of justice I am permitted bail to afford me the opportunity to generate income and maintain my children financially, and of course, afford them emotional support,” he stated in his application filed in the Western Cape High Court this week.

Rohde’s lawyers are hoping his urgent application will be heard on Wednesday, if not by his trial judge then by another senior judge.

Rohde’s dramatic bid to be freed from Drakenstein Prison in Paarl, where he is currently serving a 20-year sentence for the murder of his wife Susan and defeating the ends of justice, comes hot on the heels of his successful appeal to the Supreme Court.

Earlier this week, Rohde and his family were elated to learn that the Supreme Court granted him leave to appeal both his convictions and sentences.

Rohde, now 50, has been advised that he stands a fighting chance in the Supreme Court which could overturn Judge Salie-Hlophe’s November conviction and free him for good.

“Another court considering the record of the proceedings and the judgment could come to a different conclusion,” declared Rohde.

“I am advised by my legal representatives that there are, indeed, good prospects of success on appeal against both my conviction and sentences imposed. We are over the moon,” said a family member.

“This is fantastic news for Jason’s girls who need their dad back.”

The company in the application’s spotlight is Lew-Geffen Sothebys International Realty, Johannesburg North, Rohde’s last remaining financial asset and his daughters’ only lifeline.

The company is owned by Rohde, his mother Brenda, long-time business partner Maureen Taggart and Lew Geffen.

It has been struggling to survive since Rohde’s incarceration and is “desperately in need of my management and administrative involvement,” said Rohde, “without which, it will inevitably fail.”

More pressing for Rohde however is a “takeover attempt” by joint shareholder Geffen, who terminated him as chief executive of the holding company after his arrest and “disassociated himself from me entirely”.

Now, after giving notice in May that he was terminating the franchise name, Geffen with Taggart “are currently attempting to divert a sum in excess of R7.7 million” from a property sale that would effectively “financially cripple” the company.

Rohde is currently being held in a single cell for approximately 23 hours a day. He is permitted an hour exercise and allowed two family visits a month.