Disgraced Port Elizabeth lawyer and convicted fraudster Michael Randell should be sleeping in St Albans Prison by Monday next week.
This is according to public prosecutor Wilhelm de Villiers, after the Port Elizabeth Commercial Crimes Court on Monday released a Constitutional Court judgment dismissing Randell’s appeal against his R2.5m fraud conviction involving Greenwood Primary School.
Randell and his co-accused – former Greenwood principal Patrick Shelver and school governing body chair Michel Lascot, who died in 2007 – defrauded the Park Drive school between 1999 and 2006.
Randell pocketed R800,000 of the proceeds of the fraud.
De Villiers, who said he had been “married to the case” since the start of the trial, agreed on Monday that the Constitutional Court ruling, handed down on Wednesday last week, finally drew a line under the lengthy litigation saga.
In its brief ruling, the Constitutional Court dismissed the appeal as it “bears no prospects of success”.
Randell, having approached the highest court in the country, has no further legal options and must now hand himself over to the authorities.
He has been out on a bail of R15,000 since he was convicted in the Commercial Crimes Court on April 21 2016.
“He must hand himself over to the clerk of the court on November 26,” De Villiers said.
Randell only appealed against his conviction and not his sentence. “He was sentenced to six years in prison, of which two were suspended,” De Villiers said.
“This means he must hand himself in for an effective four years in prison.
“He should be sleeping in St Albans [Prison] on Monday night.”
De Villiers said the sentence was satisfactory compared with Shelver’s and taking into account that Randell – once a respected litigator – had been disbarred, had fallen from grace and was now entering prison at the age of 65.
Shelver had pleaded guilty to his part in the fraud in January 2013 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, suspended for five years on condition that he pay back the money within the five years.
Shelver and Randell – who was the vice-chair of the school’s governing body at the time of the fraud – were arrested in November 2009 after they were accused of pocketing money from the sale of a school property.
The men had bought a property near the school at a discounted price with school funds. They then registered themselves as beneficiaries and sold the property at a profit.