Three men convicted of a $2.2 million housing scam have been sentenced to three years' jail, but their victims have little chance of getting their money back.
Some victims wept as the trio - former Hamilton lawyer Prem Kumar, aged 39, retired Te Awamutu farmer Tony Ralph Burrell and a 59-year-old
Hamilton man with name suppression - were sentenced in the Hamilton District Court.
The men, who sat with heads bowed low, had been convicted of a scam to bulk-buy 46 former Housing New Zealand homes with finance from fraudulent loans on unsuspecting victims' houses.
Judge Robert Spear said they had destroyed the lives of many of the victims - mainly elderly and lower income Maori families - who lost a total of almost $2 million.
The maximum penalties for the crimes were 5 to 7 years.
The Serious Fraud Office said there was no likelihood of reparation from the trio despite evidence that they made a combined profit of more than $500,000.
Burrell and Kumar had since been judged bankrupt, while the man with name suppression claimed to have lost everything.
All had empty bank accounts and no assets.
The man with interim name suppression, who has severe and deteriorating heart failure, did not gain the home detention his lawyer asked for because his sentence was longer than two years.
The Court of Appeal is to rule this month on whether to lift suppression.
The court heard that Burrell was sentenced to 5 1/2 years in prison in 1993 for "large scale dishonest offending", including burglary, selling cannabis and aggravated assault.
Kumar was the only one of the three to show remorse, making an apology to the victims through his lawyer.
He was struck off as a lawyer and his firm closed in June.
Judge Spear said he was "troubled" by his earlier sentencing of the trio's co-accused, Miles John McKelvy, to 10 months' periodic detention and a $10,000 fine. He had pleaded guilty to one charge and agreed to be a prosecution witness against the others.
Judge Spear said he had had to rely on the SFO's claim that McKelvy was the least serious offender. "Of course, I know a lot more now," he said.
He had "no doubt" McKelvy would have been convicted and sentenced to five years in prison had he not pleaded guilty.
- NZPA
