Former Treaty of Waitangi claims negotiator Ngatata Love will be released on parole in October, having served less than half of his jail term for taking a secret payment of $1.5 million while chairman of the Wellington Tenths Trust.
Love was sentenced to two years and six months imprisonment last October for the fraud. The guilty verdict followed an investigation into a $1.5m payment from a land developer into a trust controlled by Love's partner, Lorraine Skiffington, which was then used to repay a property loan on a Plimmerton house he and Skiffington co-owned.
The Court of Appeal rejected his bid to have the sentence quashed in June, with Love's lawyers arguing there had been a miscarriage of justice in declaring him fit to stand trial because of his dementia and the subsequent sentence was unduly harsh.
The appeal court judges found the two-and-a-half year jail term was "well within range, if not merciful, and could not possibly be criticised as excessive".
After a parole board hearing yesterday, Love will be "released in early October with a number of parole conditions", a spokesperson for the Department of Corrections said in an emailed statement.
