8.30pm
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has laid charges against four men after a long-standing investigation into the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust.
They are jointly accused of conspiring to defraud the trust by misdirecting donated poker machine takings back to a group of Auckland pubs.
The men appeared in Auckland District
Court today with one, a company director, receiving interim name suppression so he could inform his clients here and overseas.
Suppression was granted until 5pm on Monday.
The other men were Wayne Porter, 58, a company director of Waimauku; Peter John Pharo, 61, a hotelier of Remuera, and Stewart Thomas Romley, 60, a financial officer of Takapuna.
The SFO investigation became public in February last year when officials raided the trust's headquarters and the homes of its principal staff, seizing thousands of documents.
The men entered no pleas to charges of conspiracy to defraud the trust between October 1997 and March 2002.
It is alleged they arranged for pub charity Goldtimes Foundation to make payments of gaming machine proceeds to the trust, knowing that a percentage would be paid to the Birdcage Tavern, Palace Casino, Cazino Bar, Goldies Casino and Porter and Pharo "purportedly for costs of advertising when such costs were unauthorised".
Goldtimes, a major trust donor, mainly housed its poker machines in pubs run by Porter and Pharo.
Romley was formerly an accountant at the helicopter trust and Goldtimes.
The four men were also charged with conspiring to defraud the trust's sister organisation, New Zealand Child Flight trust, in a similar way between February 1999 and March 2002.
The men were all granted bail. They all have to surrender their passports, except for the man with name suppression, who can travel overseas if he gives an itinerary to the SFO.
