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A Seventh Day Adventist Church pastor has denied encouraging members of his congregation to lend money to a church member now on trial for an alleged $850,000 scam.
It would have been unethical for him to do such a thing, now retired pastor Melvin Trevena told a jury in the Dunedin District Court yesterday.
During the second day of the trial of former parishioner Damas Tutehau Flohr, 69, on seven charges of causing losses by deception, Mr Trevena agreed his credit cards were "maxed out", his bank account frozen and he was not allowed to send money through Western Union by the end of 2008 when he and his wife allowed Flohr and his wife to stay with them because they had nowhere else to go.
Mr Trevena said the bank had already spoken to him about money laundering concerns because of the number of transactions through his accounts and, as a result, he later talked to the police. He explained all his money had gone to Flohr, who claimed to have more than $US30,000,000 due from an oil contract in Nigeria but needed to pay certain fees to free up the money. Mr Trevena said Flohr had told him he was also helping two refugees trying to retrieve their money.
To defence counsel Max Winders, Mr Trevena agreed that, by the time Flohr and his wife moved into their home, he believed there was $US18,508,000 in his name in a Bank of New York Mellon account. He believed a similar sum was being held in the name of Flohr's son in the same bank but funds were needed to "sort out the hassles" and to pay various fees and lawyers so the money could be transferred back to New Zealand.
Mr Trevena said he had been assured by Flohr the more than $246,000 he and his wife had advanced to him would be repaid.
Flohr denies causing Mr Trevena and his wife losses of $246,519.31. He also denies six other charges of causing losses totalling just over $600,000 to two other couples and four individuals between September 2008 and December 2009.
Mr Trevena acknowledged other parishioners had provided large sums of money to Flohr but he had not asked them to do so and had refused to talk with them when Flohr asked him.
He had told Flohr it would be unethical for him (Mr Trevena) to approach anybody else for money for the accused and had definitely not suggested any names.
Mr Winders suggested the witness and Flohr were "in this whole enterprise 50/50 by then" in relation to getting the money back from New York, but Mr Trevena said he believed he and his wife were being used.
"We were very naive," he said.
The trial, before Judge Michael Crosbie and the jury could take up to three weeks.