Cape Town - Johannes Jacobs and his father Willem Jacobs appeared in the Cape Town Regional Court on Thursday charged with three counts of fraud, forgery and uttering after they allegedly tried to enter into a sale agreement for a farm in Laingsburg.
It is alleged that the pair falsified banking documents in order to obtain a number of farms from Jozef le Roes for over R19 million, and produced a letter of guarantee from the bank which stated that they were in possession of over R31 million, which they allegedly obtained through fraudulent means. They pleaded not guilty to the charges.
On Thursday their lawyer, advocate Grant Smith, put Le Roes’s version to the test as he questioned him on the legal documents he signed, leaving his fate in the hands of the Jacobs.
Le Roes had testified that he was “uncomfortable” after an amendment was made to one of the documents. He said that he had discussed the amendments with Johannes and they agreed on the terms, thinking that Johannes would be responsible, but only discovered afterwards that he was being held liable.
Smith tried to establish whether he had discussed this with an agent or his attorney after he signed it and what advice led him to being “uncomfortable”.
He said the original attorney who dealt with the sale agreement had contacted him to advise him of the dangers if the Jacobs’s attorney was the only one dealing with the transaction.
“The accused advised me that it would be beneficial if we used one attorney but I wasn’t aware of the dangers involved in this decision,” Le Roes said.
He said they talked him into it.
“Please understand, here we are dealing with a big transaction and I felt overpowered by the two accused,” Le Roes said.
Smith said: “Mr Le Roes, my problem is, when the shoe starts to pinch … then suddenly you couldn’t remember and we have the problem with the anaesthetics, which I can understand. Now we have the exact same situation… when you get caught out, then you fall back on the loss of memory.”
He said that Le Roes had a “selective memory” when put under pressure, but Le Roes said that wasn’t the case and he was starting to remember things piece by piece.