Man on $1.3M theft charge

Press, 14 April 1984, Page 9

Man on $1.3M theft charge

PA Auckland A company director of Christchurch was last evening committed for trial in the High Court at Auckland on three charges of theft by failing to account for a total of $1.3 million in credit. Ronald Albert Connell, aged 44, was committed for trial after a four-day depositions hearing in the District Court at Auckland before Justices of the Peace. Connell was committed for a District Court trial on charges of using company property for use other than

specified and causing a bill of exchange to be executed under false pretences. At the end of the hearing Connell pleaded not guilty to all the charges. He was released on bail of $20,000, with a similar surety. The charges on which Connell will face a High Court trial are that being the governing director of R.C.S. International, Ltd, he committed theft by failing to account to the Broadbank Corporation, Ltd, for the sums of $414,836 and $451,818, sums for which he

had received credit from Dick Sawyer International Incorporated, Ltd.

He will also be tried in the High Court on a charge that at Taupo on or about September 18, 1981, by failing to account for, or pay to, Broadbank he committed theft of $442,160, a sum for which he had received credit from Dick Sawyer International. He will face District Court trials on charges of causing a bill of exchange worth $467,589 to be executed by falsely repre-

senting that a Mitsubishi aircraft was unencumbered and available for purchase, and that being an officer of a firm he took gold, the property of the firm, for a purpose other than specified. Before Judge Blackwood in the District Court yesterday Connell pleaded not guilty to three charges of unlawful possession of pistols at Taupo. Judge Blackwood remanded him to July 19, on bail of $5OO, for hearing of the charges.