Tim Murphy
Tim Murphy is co-editor of Newsroom. He writes about politics, Auckland and media. Twitter: @tmurphynz
Politics
A four-year saga of alleged cover-ups of donations to National and Labor ends with the former National MP and three others guilty of some charges
Three of the seven defendants in the Supreme Court political donation fraud trial — but not former MP Jami-Lee Ross — have been found guilty of solicitation by deception.
Ross and three others with name suppression in connection with a donation to Labor in 2017 were found not guilty of all charges.
There were no convictions about the Labor Party investigation.
Judge Ian Gault delivered a ruling Tuesday morning, finding businessman Yikun Zhang and brothers Colin Zheng and Joe Zheng guilty of one donation to National in 2018, Colin Zheng guilty of donating to National in 2017 and Joe Zheng guilty of lying to the Serious Fraud Bureau.
The Serious Fraud Office has charged four of the seven people, Ross, Zhang, Zheng and Zheng, with cheating in breaking two $100,000 donations to National, in 2017 and 2018.
Those four, plus three others with name suppression, had also been charged in 2017 with a $60,000 (net $35,000) donation to Labor, the proceeds of an alleged fundraising auction of paintings.
Lawyers for two of those with name suppression had already appealed a decision by Judge Gault that allowed them to be identified, but lost in the Court of Appeals, so the suppression had to be lifted after he released his verdicts. But after the verdicts, those defendants immediately filed further requests for permanent suppression, so the judge issued an interim injunction to keep their names secret until another hearing.
Joe Zheng was also found guilty of lying to the Serious Fraud Office during his mandatory interviews in December 2019 and January 2020.
In a seven-week trial, the Crown claimed that in all three cases, the large sums had been broken down into smaller sums below the electoral law disclosure limits, and were instead being ‘transmitted’ to the parties through ‘sham donors’.
In its closing speech, the Crown said all those who assisted in what it says was a fraudulent scheme to prevent the major donor, Zhang’s name, from being made public. lied. All except Ross. The Crown case is that Ross’s self-recorded conversations with national leader Simon Bridges, his two media conferences and a police complaint interview in October 2018 implicated him by admitting he was involved.
The inquiry into the national case took place first, and in 2020, when the names of Ross, Zhang, Zheng and Zheng were made public, a new inquiry into the Labor Party followed.
Also in 2020, the SFO was investigating donations to the New Zealand First Foundation, indicting two people who were found not guilty of solicitation through fraud this year after a trial this year.
After Judge Gault delivered his sentences, the conviction was set for November 30 and the three found guilty were returned to bail.
During the trial, the Serious Fraud Office prosecutions had revealed: concern about the use of his extended coercive powers and secrecy, and the way it treated suspects, withheld information from them and ignored their lawyers.