MTF loan fraud accused pleads guilty

Serious Fraud Office chief executive Adam Feeley Photo / Dean Purcell

Two of the seven men accused of defrauding Dunedin-based Motor Trade Finance (MTF) are to be sentenced for their role in scheme after pleading guilty to charges of obtaining funds by deception.

Stewart Travis Saunders admitted one charge of illegally obtaining funds for personal gain in the Auckland District Court this morning. He will be sentenced in February next year.

The plea came just three weeks after his co-accused Clark Anthony Lewis admitted nine charges of illegally obtaining funds for personal gain. He is due to be sentenced on December 15.

The Serious Fraud Office launched an investigation in September last year, and announced last month it had laid 110 charges against the group, claiming they had defrauded MTF of $4.9 million.

Four other men - Karl Sean Toussaint, Jonathan Earle Chiswell, Brett Royce Donaldson, and former MTF dealer Mark James Whelan - have pleaded not guilty to similar charges.

Whelan faces 25 individual and 41 joint charges for spear-heading the scheme.

The four are due to reappear for a post committal conference next month.

A seventh man Richard Barnett, has been remanded on bail for two weeks so he can be assigned a lawyer.

The Serious Fraud Office 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 defgault and MTF was unable to find assets for repossession.