My experiences at Mellodramatik Murkathon South Africa. Part 4

 A multi-part story of deceit and corruption.

Repeated Fraud

During the course of the events described above, Jester attempted to obtain bank statements from one of the banks that the company transacted with, under false pretenses. Simply put, he attempted to use a signature card which was 5 years out of date to collect the statements from the bank. The bank called to verify the statement delivery, and alerted me to the actions of Jester. The statements were not handed over to him, and the matter reported the company’s attorneys for inclusion into report to the registrar of companies.

The fraud however was only just beginning; shortly after that episode I became aware of a fraudulent meeting of the shareholders of the company. The said meeting had never taken place, at the address and date and time mentioned on the resolution arising out of the fictitious meeting. The resolution was to remove me from office, suspend me and replace me with Jester, no surprises there. Fraud was once again alleged, along with gross dishonesty. A successful application was made to the Johannesburg high court, with costs to remove the resolution from the records of the company, and of the registrar of companies as well.

At this point I resolved to sue for damages as none of the allegations had been proved, and no investigation had ever been carried, only the empty accusations stood. So an action claiming 2 million Euros was started in the Johannesburg high court.

It came to my attention via Mincehere that he intended coming to South Africa again to ostensibly finish his kangaroo court exercise, and I resolved to use this to serve the summons on him for the civil claim for damages, and to inform him of the courts overturning of his fraudulent self-election to the board of directors. In true cowardly fashion, Mincehere strove to conceal his intentions until the very last moment regarding the real reason for his visit to South Africa, which was to once again attempt to suspend me, for the same reason as the year before, without ever having proved the previous claim. This time however he was fully under the impression that he had the power base, by virtue of his self-appointment to the board of MMSA, he was still blissfully unaware of the order granted by the Johannesburg high court removing him and his cronies Gamez and Jester from the board. 

In his arrogance or incompetence, he ordered me to collect him from his Johannesburg hotel so that he could then suspend me at the offices of Melodramatik. I duly collected him some two hours after the appointed time due to excessively heavy traffic that day, and transported him to the offices of MMSA in Booysens Reserve. His opening statement was to produce another letter of suspension almost identical to the one produced the year prior. I then questioned him as to his jurisdiction empowering him to deliver the suspension to me an employee and director of MMSA. He haughtily informed me that I was no longer a director of MMSA, and he was now the new MD of MMSA. In the same breath he offered to negotiate a separation package, offering six months’ salary and all of my accumulated commissions, which according to him, had not yet been credited to me. I questioned him regarding his authority to negotiate on behalf of the parent company, and he looked at me and lied that he had negotiating authority. So to test him I named a figure I was willing to accept. He replied the figure was totally unacceptable, and in that case I was once again suspended and I must leave the premises immediately and hand over my keys and computers and remote to Jester, his accomplice at this point. At that point I think, that I laughed at him, and handed him correspondence detailing that he was in fact not a director of MMSA, not the MD of MMSA, and I called the police and had him and Jester escorted off the premises. 

The following day, after a visit to a customer, I returned to the office to be confronted by Mincehere, Jester, a lawyer, and a hired gunman, who informed me that his function (while opening his jacket so I could see the holstered weapon) was to remove me from the premises’ by force if necessary. I invited the gunman to go ahead and remove me, he declined, and so I once again called the police reaction unit, gave the Captain commanding the unit a copy of the court order, and once again removed Mincehere from the premises. This time I provided the parent company in the USA with a comprehensive report detailing Mincehere’s actions in South Africa. Other than a confirmation receipt I was given no other indication that the matter was receiving any attention.

On Mincehere’s departure, the lawyer representing him, the hired gunman and Jester handed over an undated notification of a shareholders meeting to be held a month from then, all attempts at a suspension had now ceased. The notifications of the meeting were invalid, but at that point I had already decided to terminate my relationship with Melodramatik, I decided to attempt to negotiate an exit package with the legal representative who was channeling all of the communication between me and the company. Leigh Saunders, the lawyer then proceeded to play for time, in attempt to hold the meeting and remove me from office.  I had consulted with our company lawyer, who also represented me in this matter, and I devised a strategic exit from the company. 

The day before the “shareholders meeting” was due to take place, I received by fax, another apparently fraudulent document. This was to be the piece de resistance of the series of fraudulent documents in this matter. It was a voting proxy, issued by Mincehere to himself, granting himself voting proxy in the meeting of the shareholders of MMSA. In this document he claimed to not only be a shareholder of Melodramatik Germany, but of MMSA as well. To make the fraud complete, he had already voted on all three items on the agenda to remove me from office, and install himself and his accomplices in my place. The meeting never took place. The paper trail was merely to withstand scrutiny by the registrar of companies, on receiving this document I resolved to execute my exit strategy. I left the next day, without notice, and without any successor to hand over to, and this fact caused me some consternation, but I accepted that I had done as much as I could under the circumstances. Notification of the only board members final resolution was served on the lawyers representing Mincehere by telefax, and in true Mincehere style, nothing happened for over a week. This effectively absolved me of any claims by the company against me for any matters relating to my departure.

Interestingly the time Jester took up office and began once again to utilize fraudulent means to achieve his aims and objectives, the first was to use my old e-mail address to send mail to recipients unknown, to give the impression that I was still in office. The second was to telephone Nedbank card division and to attempt to make changes on credit card accounts belonging to me. The third was to call MTN mobile networks and to attempt to change the bank account debit order details on my cell phone account.

It appears that to Jester, the end justifies the means no matter what. However when it comes to keeping deadlines, and scrutinizing documents properly, he falls woefully short, and his lack of attention to detail has cost the company the use of a delivery vehicle which he failed to agree to a transfer to the company in the time allotted for this.

His lack of administrative capability extends to failing to pay out the leave pay held by the company on my account, this transaction is now some week and a half in arrears, and will be reported to the department of labor at the earliest opportunity.

Further misrepresentations

It appears that Jester also misrepresented himself to several banks, issuing what can only be described as illegitimate instructions, without any mandate from the company shareholders. Included in the raft of doubtful mandated instructions was a repeated refusal to pay for services and expenses incurred by the company, on a credit card issued to me. It has come to light some two years later that, the instructions he issued were without mandate and the bank was given a mandate two months after the issues of the instructions from Jester which prevented the settlement of due expenses.

Among the due expenses are included some ZAR300,000 in leave pay, and ZAR 330,000 in commissions. Jester was also party to the launching of a lawsuit to the value of ZAR1,500,000 as counterclaim to the Euro 2,000,000 for defamation, against Melodramatik and Mincehere. The lodging of the court action by Jester also had the effect of freezing ZAR 660,000 in a pension fund due to me.

Ironically, no one from Melodramatik has ever considered how ludicrous it was to try to take action against an employee, because in their own words: “an estimate did not match a projection” when it came to an annual budget.