The Labour Department announced a medical doctor who had defrauded the Compensation Fund (CF) of close to R400,000 had been sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment and wholly suspended for five years.
The Citizen reports that the sentence means David Michael Adams, 42, won’t spend a day in jail unless he is found guilty of theft or attempted theft in the next five years.
“In terms of the sentence, Dr Adams is expected to submit himself and undergo three years of correctional supervision (house arrest, perform community service, life skills and orientation programme, desist from using abuse alcohol and drugs),” department spokesperson Teboho Thejane said.
The report says Adams was convicted in April on 29 counts of theft. He had received unlawful payments from the CF totalling R396,660 and was arrested in 2010 while he worked in Rustenburg in the North-West province.
The State had asked that he be handed a custodial sentence saying that Adams was not a lay person, was educated and received a regular income “while taking away from the poor”. The court decided otherwise.
“Magistrate Ms Ncube said the sentence was fair considering that the accused was a first offender, had shown remorse and had at one stage offered to pay back his ill-gotten gains,” said Thejane.
He said the Asset Forfeiture Unit had obtained an order allowing the confiscation of Adams’ assets. “He is also due to pay R470 000 back to the state.”
[link url="http://citizen.co.za/news/news-national/1571370/doctor-defrauded-compensation-fund-r400k-sentenced/"]The Citizen report[/link]