KEY POINTS:
The wife of a prominent New Zealand administrator has been found guilty of 23 fraud charges relating to more than $130,000 of pokie machine money.
Name suppression will continue for the moment for the 68-year-old woman, who was found guilty by a jury which retired at 11.30am yesterday following a 12-day trial at Auckland District Court.
The woman was found guilty on 23 charges alleging she took a total of $131,050. She was also found not guilty on eight other charges, involving a total of $21,100.
All of the charges related to the misuse of funds raised from pokie machines at pubs that she and her husband owned.
The woman was arrested following a Serious Fraud Office investigation which also resulted in former Waipareira Trust chief financial officer Mike Tolich admitting 15 charges of forging invoices totalling $190,000.
Tolich was discharged without conviction.
Two charges, both of which she was found guilty of, relate to events in 2001, while the rest date back to 1999.
The woman wept in the dock as the verdicts were read. One family member said "you're all wrong".
Judge Nicola Mathers remanded the woman on bail. She will be sentenced in February.
Judge Mathers will decide this week whether a hearing will be held on continuing name suppression.
The woman was found guilty of six charges totalling $68,000 which alleged she handed money raised from the pokie machines on the condition she got a kickback of 50 per cent. Four of the charges -- including three connected to Waipareira Trust -- involved Tolich as another party.
The other charges alleged she paid money out of the trust's fund which had not gone through the formal approval process.
Crown prosecutor Mark Woolford said she had taken money from the gaming trust which could have gone to other groups that legitimately applied for it.
"Sure, she was generous, but she was generous with other people's money, money that was not her own," Mr Woolford said during his closing submission.
He said she had admitted on the witness stand that she had structured some payments to get around Department of Internal Affairs auditors, actions which could be enough to find her guilty of a criminal intent to defraud.
The woman's lawyer Paul Wicks said in his closing submission that Mr Tolich, a key Crown witness, had little credibility and that he was trying to diminish his own actions ahead of a hearing in which he sought to remain a chartered accountant.
Mr Wicks said the woman did not pocket any of the money herself, and that several of the breaches of licence conditions had been picked up by the Department of Internal Affairs in 2001, which had seen no need to prosecute her.
Breaching licence conditions fell well short of criminal intent, he said.
- NZPA
