By Zelda Venter
High Court Reporter
Burt Prinsloo, former husband of Krion kingpin and crime boss Marietjie Prinsloo, had been reduced from a highly successful and respected senior official at Absa Bank to a penniless man who lives in a single room, with church handouts.
This emerged from a pre-sentencing report handed in to the Pretoria High Court yesterday.
Prinsloo, his former wife and five family members have been convicted on an array of charges following the collapse of the Krion money- making scheme.
The Krion pyramid scheme took more than R1.5 billion from investors over nearly four years, leaving many investors in poverty.
Marietjie Prinsloo, her former husband, her daughter Yolandi Lemstra and her husband Gerrit and her sister’s daughter Izabel Engelbrecht and her husband Heindrich, as well as Prinsloo’s son Kobus Pelser, were arrested in 2002.
Their trial, which lasted several months, is now nearing the end with the court having to consider their sentences.
A psychological report on Marietjie Prinsloo was earlier handed in. It described her as a woman who had lost everything. She, too, is now dependent of church handouts, as opposed to the lap of luxury she and her family previously lived in.
The court’s attention was focused yesterday on the personal circumstances of her former husband, who is now 67.
After working for Absa for many years, Prinsloo left his job and joined one of Prinsloo’s businesses, where he, among others, recruited investors. Prinsloo told the social worker who compiled the report that he does not see how he defrauded the alleged victims.
He never questioned the legality of the scheme, he said, as he only carried out his former wife’s instructions.
In spite of his conviction on 29 904 counts, he still maintained that he was innocent because he “had done nothing wrong”.
According to him he never intended to deceive any person or fraudulently benefited from any illegal activity. The court was told Prinsloo had expressed bitterness as he saw himself as the victim of circumstances, and had lost everything which he worked for in his life.
Prinsloo asserts that he joined the company on the verge of its collapse and questioned why he should be held equally responsible with his co-accused.
Prinsloo said when he left Absa, he did no intend to get involved in illegal activities, he just wanted to make more money. Instead, he is now struggling to make ends meet and depends on his old-age pension and on the church. Prinsloo said he does not know how he is going to survive from day to day. “He is confined to a single room where his belongings are squashed into one cupboard,” the report stated.
The social worker recommended Prinsloo be sentenced to a stint in jail for his involvement in the scheme. The trial is proceeding.