Cape Town - A clerk based at the Vredenburg Magistrate’s Court on the Cape west coast, appeared in court on Friday, facing two charges of fraud for allegedly pocketing admission-of-guilt fines.
She is alleged to have fraudulently accepted admission-of-guilt fines totalling almost R10 000, and kept them for herself.
Lynette Sharon Julies, 35, of Hopefield, appeared in the Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Bellville before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg, who extended her R1 000 bail and warned her to appear again on August 30.
Prosecutor Xolile Jonas told the court that plea negotiations were underway with defence advocate Nigel Samuels.
According to the charge sheet, Julies was engaged at the Vredenburg Magistrate’s Court in November 2008, as the senior administrative clerk in charge of criminal court services.
She had no right to accept monies paid as fines, as this was the duty of the financial clerk.
According to the charge sheet, all fines paid into the office had to be registered on the electronic accounting system.
The purpose was to reconcile the financial records at the end of each month, when payments were made to the State itself, as well as to the Traffic or Marine and Coastal Departments.
An investigation revealed that during the three years from January 2012 to 2015, a total of 14 admission-of-guilt fines amounting to R9 800, could not be accounted for on the system.
It was also discovered that people paying such fines had paid them to Julies, in the mistaken belief that she was the correct official to receive the money.
The State alleges that instead of issuing the people with official court receipts as their proof of payment, she had in some cases given them receipts normally issued at police stations for trivial offences.
In such instances, she merely placed the court date stamp on the police receipts, signed them and wrote on the receipts “court paid”.
In other instances, instead of issuing the police receipts, she noted the offender’s telephone number and later assured the offender by telephone that “all was in order” and that there was no need for the offender to fetch the receipt.
It is alleged that she kept the fines for herself, and that people who had paid them to her ran the risk of arrest for failure to pay.
One fraud charge alleges that she fraudulently misrepresented herself as being the correct official to whom the fines had to be paid. The other charge alleges that she falsely led the justice department to believe that the monies she received were registered on the system, and would paid to the various departments at the end of the month, whereas she allegedly kept the money for herself.
In the alternative to the fraud charges, she is charged with two counts of theft.
African News Agency