Guilty plea in MTF loan fraud case

Serious Fraud Office chief executive Adam Feeley Photo / Dean Purcell

The first appearance of seven people charged with defrauding Dunedin-based Motor Trade Finance saw one of the accused plead guilty for his role in the scheme.

Clark Lewis pleaded guilty to nine charges of obtaining funds by deception when he appeared at the Auckland District Court today. The charges have a maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment. The other six people, including former MTF dealer Mark Whelan, entered no plea.

Last month, the Serious Fraud Office laid 110 charges against the group, claiming they had defrauded MTF of some $4.9 million by illegally obtaining loans and using those funds for personal gain.

Whelan faces 25 individual and 41 joint charges for spear-heading the scheme, while Richard Barnett, Jonathan Chiswell, Brett Donaldson, Steward Saunders and Karl Toussaint also face charges for their respective roles.

The SFO claims between July 2005 and February 2009 Whelan wrote a number of loans in the names of family, friends and associates using fake assets as security.

In early 2009 the loans went into default and MTF was unable to find the assets for repossession. The SFO opened its probe in September last year.

Dunedin-based MTF reported a profit of $2.9 million in the six months ended March 31, up from $2.8 million a year earlier, and had a loan book worth $393.7 million as at March 31, down from $446.1 million a year earlier.

In July, the lender replaced long-serving chairman Roger Bonifant with Stephen Higgs, and appointed Stephen McKewen as an independent director.

MTF has $40 million of perpetual preference shares listed on the NZX's debt market, which last traded yesterday at 51.3 cents in the dollar.