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Former All Black Doug Rollerson has pleaded guilty to defrauding sports organisations out of charity money in a scheme allegedly involving five other prominent sportsmen.
The group is accused of taking kickbacks, over a four-year period, from gaming-machine money intended for North Harbour Rugby Football Union, which Rollerson was chief executive of, and Touch New Zealand, and writing false invoices to account for the transactions.
After a Serious Fraud Office investigation, Rollerson, who played 24 games for the All Blacks between 1976 and 1981, was also charged with entering false entries in North Harbour's books of account to remove a debt.
A depositions hearing for Rollerson, ex-Kiwi league captain Hugh McGahan, Touch New Zealand former chief executive Dick Arnott, and former employee Geoffrey Alan Thompson, was held in the Auckland District Court last November. The fifth accused is a woman who has name suppression.
The group were committed to stand trial in July but Rollerson yesterday pleaded guilty to two fraud charges in the High Court at Auckland and will be sentenced in February. Former league star Brent Todd last year admitted four fraud charges for his part in the scam, three days before he was due to face a depositions hearing. Another accused, Stanley Wijeyaratne, also pleaded guilty to four charges.
