Cape Town - A former Absa Bank employee currently serving four years behind bars for fraud and corruption, will have to wait to hear her fate as judgment has been reserved in the Constitutional Court in her application for leave to appeal.
A full Bench heard Natasha Liebenberg’s application against the judgment and order of the High Court of South Africa, Northern Cape Division, Kimberley where she was found guilty on 266 criminal charges.
The banking institution opposed her application for leave to appeal.
The Kimberley Magistrate’s Court convicted Liebenberg of 86 counts of fraud, 85 counts of forgery, 85 counts of uttering and 10 counts of theft after she unlawfully, with the intent to defraud Absa Bank, forged signatures of beneficiaries and withdrew funds without following proper procedures.
Liebenberg was in the employ of the bank from 1992 in the administration of Deceased Estates Department and she allegedly fraudulently completed cash withdrawal slips and subsequently withdrew the funds in the names of various beneficiaries between 2008 and 2011.
In September 2011, Absa’s forensic Investigator conducted an investigation into these allegations.
Interviews were conducted and certain written statements were made by Liebenberg which led to disciplinary proceedings conducted by Absa and the subsequent criminal trial.
“At the trial it was found she had defrauded the company to the value of about R835 000.
A confiscation order of R2 million was also made against her which included her pension payout.”
An extract from Liebenberg’s admission read: “My actions were wrongful and unlawful and I show remorse for it as I had not followed the correct procedure.
“I had not benefited at all but I paid the money to executors of the deceased estate.
“I admit guilt to defrauding Absa by forging the signatures of the beneficiaries,” Liebenberg’s statement read.
In a second attempt in the Supreme Court of Appeal to have her sentence reduced after a high court previously discounted her sentence from six years to the current four-year sentence, she submitted that the court erred in its judgment as she should have been given a non-custodial sentence after she offered the section 220 statement.
She further argued that the court should consider her application due to “the fact that the alleged offences were committed 12 years ago.
During this time she had not committed any offence, nor proven to be worthy of being removed from society”.
During the criminal trial, Liebenberg changed her initial plea of not guilty to guilty and signed a statement in terms of section 220 of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 (CPA) admitting that she acted unlawfully.
In her written submissions, Liebenberg said: “I was sentenced as if I benefited from the (R834 802.10) amount.
As already shown, there is no evidence to this effect, and I denied it throughout the trial.
The court also did not take into account the long delay in finalising the matter. As indicated above, the charges relate to what happened in 2008 up to 2011.
I was only charged in 2015 and the judgment on appeal was only delivered in September 2021,” said Liebenberg.
Cape Times