Fidentia’s Goodwin gets jail sentence

CAPE TOWN – A key figure in the Fidentia saga in South Africa, Steve Goodwin, has been convicted of fraud and corruption, and of money laundering involving about N$93 million.

In terms of a plea agreement endorsed by the Cape High Court on Monday morning, he has been sentenced to an effective 10 years in jail.
Part of the deal is that he will testify in criminal proceedings against his former associate, ex-Fidentia boss Arthur Brown.
Goodwin, a broker, fled to Australia in early 2007, shortly before the Scorpions began probing the Fidentia affair.
He was arrested by the FBI at Los Angeles airport in the United States in April last year, and launched a protracted legal challenge – which he lost – to the extradition agreement between the US and South Africa.
When he appeared before acting Cape judge president Jeanette Traverso on Monday morning, prosecutor Jannie van Vuuren said Goodwin had agreed to return voluntarily, and had waived his rights in terms of formal extradition proceedings.
She sentenced him to 20 years jail on one count of fraud, of which 10 years was conditionally suspended for five years.
On two counts of corruption, he was sentenced to one jail term of 15 years, of which five were suspended.
On 33 counts of money-laundering, he was sentenced to one term of 15 years, of which seven was suspended.
Traverso said the corruption and laundering sentences would run concurrently with the fraud.
The 12 months he had spent in a US detention centre since April 7 would be subtracted from the jail time, she said.
One of the conditions of the suspensions is that he testify against Brown, who is facing a range of fraud and theft charges.
According to the agreement, Goodwin played a key role in getting the Transport Sector Education and Training Authority (Teta) to transfer investments to Fidentia’s control.
To do this, he paid former Teta chief executive Piet Bothma bribes totalling N$4,6 million, which were disguised first as commission payments, then as a sale of shares in a shell company that had no assets.
Although the plea agreement does not mention the amount of the investments, according to other prosecution documents it involved promissory notes worth just over N$100 million, which Fidentia then sold off to pay personal and company expenses and creditors.
According to the agreement, Goodwin himself got about N$32 million of the Teta funds as his own share of the loot.
To disguise what had happened, he compiled fictitious monthly statements for the benefit of the Teta board, showing what the funds would have been at prevailing interest rates.
The money laundering charge involved the flow of this cash through bank accounts controlled by Goodwin or companies he owned, including Worthytrade and Intaband.
‘To facilitate the aforementioned theft, and corrupt payments, devices were created and measures were taken to disguise the origin, nature and destination of monies,’ the agreement read.
It said though Goodwin had not been employed by Brown’s Fidentia Asset Management, or privy to its internal arrangements, he had suspected a theft had taken place.
‘He was not aware at the time of the exact nature, quantum and source of the funds that are the subject matter of the theft.
‘He accepts that an amount of approximately N$93 million was laundered by him.’
In terms of the agreement, Goodwin would co-operate fully with prosecutors on the Fidentia investigation, assist Fidentia’s curators ‘in their restitution efforts’, and assist investigators in tracing the missing funds.
Former Fidentia director and accountant Graham Maddock last year began a seven year jail sentence after pleading guilty to theft and money laundering.
Prosecutors have also charged Teta’s Bothma and broker Jacobus Theart.
Though he is challenging the charges in the Cape High Court, Brown has been involved in plea bargain talks.
-Nampa-Sapa