Cape Town - The Western Cape High Court is to hear an application in December to review a case involving a woman who embezzled almost R1 million from prominent auctioneer, Julius Buchinsky.
Buchinsky’s former personal assistant, Najwa Taliep, 42, was to have been sentenced in November last year after pleading guilty to 631 counts of fraud involving almost R1 million.
She appeared on Monday in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg.
Taliep was about to be sentenced late in November, when defence attorney William Booth replaced legal aid attorney Hayley Lawrence.
Booth said Taliep should never have pleaded guilty and that she now wished to change her plea to not guilty.
A full-blown inquiry ensued in which the court ruled that Taliep had been correctly advised by Lawrence to plead guilty, and that Taliep had been correctly convicted.
For this reason, the court refused Taliep permission to change her plea.
Booth then took the matter to the High Court to rule whether Taliep should be allowed to change her plea of guilty to not guilty, or not.
At Monday’s proceedings, prosecutor Ezmerelda Johnson told the court that Western Cape Judge-President John Hlophe had scheduled the review for December 4.
The proceedings in the commercial court were accordingly postponed to December 7.
As Buchinsky’s personal assistant, Taliep had access to his business and personal bank accounts. Her duties had included the processing all electronic transactions, administrative functions, and paying clients who had put their homes up for auction.
According to the charge sheet, Taliep fraudulently transferred R961,081 from accounts in the names of Julius Buchinsky Organisation, SA Sale Promotions and Julius Buchinsky, into her own two bank accounts, between January 2008 and December 2010.
To cover her tracks, she reflected these fraudulent electronic transfers as payments to the Buchinsky clients, or as day-to-day expenses.
ANA