Durban - Former KwaZulu-Natal police spokesman, Vincent Mdunge, 49, was on Monday sentenced to five years in jail for fraud and forgery over a fake matric certificate.
In handing down sentence, Durban Regional Court magistrate Thandeka Fikeni said she tried to be as lenient as she could.
But, she said: “There is absolutely nothing respectable about white collar criminals and crime.”
Soon after sentencing, Mdunge’s attorney, Yusuf Omar, applied for leave to appeal the former policeman’s conviction and sentence, which she granted.
Fikeni said she had taken into account, when preparing the sentence, that Mdunge was a first offender, was married with five children and was now unemployed.
She referred to his social standing in society as a high-ranking police official.
“Society always looks to the police as people who are law abiding,” she said during her sentencing judgment.
In sentencing him to five years in jail, she had treated the three counts – one of forgery and two of fraud – as one.
State prosecutor, Barend Groen, did not oppose Omar’s application for leave to appeal.
Fikeni granted the application and extended Mdunge’s R5 000 bail.
Outside court, Omar said they had not expected a jail sentence.
His said the appeal, which would be heard in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, could take any length of time to be heard – even up to two years.
Omar said he was surprised the magistrate did not make an order to repay money – proceeds from the benefits of the crime.
The State initially argued that Mdunge had defrauded the police of R3.5 million for receiving a salary he was not entitled to on the basis of the fake certificate.
During arguments for sentencing, this amount was narrowed down to about R874 000.
Mdunge held the rank of colonel when he was arrested in October 2013, a month after he resigned when the fraud was discovered.
A year later, in November 2014, he was found guilty of fraud and forgery in the Durban Magistrate’s Court.
Prosecutor Groen argued during the trial that Mdunge failed matric in 1985 and wrote supplementary exams in 1986, which he also failed. The court heard how Mdunge’s “matric” certificate was a fake and that the examination number on the certificate was his Standard 8 (Grade 10) examination number.
Mdunge was acquitted of misrepresenting himself when he joined the police force in 1987 as a special constable, with the court saying that count of fraud had not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Special constables only required a Standard 8 pass.
He was found guilty of fraud because he received a salary he was not entitled to.
During the trial, one of Mdunge’s former teachers was called to the stand.
Vusimuzi Donald Duke Khumalo said he was the former policeman’s English teacher in 1984 and 1985, when Mdunge was a matric pupil at Ukusa High School in Hammarsdale.
Asked about the exam number on the certificate that the State alleged was fraudulent, he said he did not check the number, but the names matched the pupils who got the certificates.
Another witness, Daniel Morake, an education department official from Pretoria, testified that Mdunge’s matric certificate was fake.
Daily News