Cash scam church leader jailed

By JOSIE CLARKE

An unsolicited letter from Nigeria started a chain of events that ended yesterday in five years' prison for a church leader who swindled his victims out of $1.2 million.

The scam that landed 59-year-old Hori Mete Harvey in jail began in 1995 when the highly regarded member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints replied to a form letter sent to his Otahuhu post office box.

The letter, one of thousands distributed around the world, promised Harvey millions if he agreed to help shift funds out of Nigeria.

He accepted the deal and paid a fee to secure $US21.5 million. Almost immediately, the scam's Nigerian promoters demanded more to cover taxes, legal costs, environmental impact levies and courier costs.

Harvey's family met the early demands, but in 1996 he began asking church members for money, telling them he needed to pay fees to release a $US20 million fund and guaranteeing them 100 per cent interest within two weeks.

To lend credibility to the scheme, he lied that his business partner had been the late Bob Sackley, a prominent American Mormon leader.

In all, 15 churchgoers and associates of Harvey and two Maori organisations lost almost $1.2 million.

Harvey was arrested on July 11 last year and later admitted to 29 charges of using and obtaining documents with intent to defraud. In the Auckland District Court yesterday, Judge Michael Hobbs accepted that none of the money would be repaid.

Defence counsel Don Mathias said Harvey told lawyers he had travelled to London three times to meet his Nigerian contacts at a house used by the Nigerian embassy.

At one of the meetings, Harvey saw $US21 million in notes and "was convinced in his own mind that some of this money would eventually be released to him and so to his investors".

One of the victims, an 82-year-old widow who lost $200,000, sat alone at the back of the court during Harvey's sentencing.

Judge Hobbs read part of the woman's victim impact statement to the court: "My late husband and I worked very hard to accumulate the money, working overtime and living frugally to provide for our old age. Now it is all gone ... and it is a sad end of life for me. I now know why people end their misery by taking an overdose of sleeping pills."

Judge Hobbs said it was clear that Harvey used his position in the church and as a financial adviser to gain the trust of his victims.

In a prepared statement released yesterday, church spokesman Sydney Shepherd said it condemned those who broke the law and "prey on the naive and innocent".

The church continued to advise and help the people affected by Harvey.

The church never recommended its members invest in financial schemes or investments and counselled them to be "wise and frugal in the use of their money".