Bogus lawyer up for US$43 000 fraud

Yeukai Karengezeka–Court Correspondent 

A BOGUS lawyer appeared in court yesterday for allegedly swindling his client of US$43 000.

Denford Jaricha (35) is facing two counts of theft of trust property and one count of practicing as a lawyer without a certificate before Harare magistrate Mr Dennis Mangosi who granted him US$500 bail and remanded him to February 13.

Prosecutor Mr Thomas Chanakira alleged that sometime in during 2022, Mr Berin Nathaniel Stockil engaged Jaricha to be his legal representative in a business transaction where he and his business partner sold their company Lucon Industries (Pvt) Ltd of Marondera to Techmart (Pvt) Ltd.

On November 4, 2022, Jaricha, who was in the company of Mr Stockil, went to the accountant Erasmus Vermaak of Accounting and Executor Services Pvt Ltd who had been engaged by Mr Stockil to handle the instalment payments by Techmart (Pvt) Ltd. They both collected US$25 000. After their transactions formalities, Jaricha was then given US$18 500 by Mr Stockil to cover the capital gains tax payable at ZIMRA Harare.

But he did not pay the taxes and instead converted the money to his own use. On second count, it is alleged that on April 24 last year, a final instalment of US$25 000 was paid by the Techmart representative to Jaricha, who allegedly signed a receipt as acknowledgement of the payment on behalf of Mr Stockil.

Although he was supposed to hand over the money to its rightful owner he decided to convert the money for his own use. 

Afterwards, Jaricha became evasive and went to the extent of changing his contact number for the purpose of cutting communication with Mr Stockil. 

The third count refers to the allegation that while Jaricha was handling his transactions of selling his company Lucon (Pvt) Ltd to Techmart (Pvt) Ltd, he represented Mr Stockil as a legal representative and gave him legal advice in all legal matters pertaining the sale of the company when he was not registered with the Law Society of Zimbabwe in terms of the Legal Practitioners Act.