Former liquidator Geoffrey Smith jailed for four years for theft of $ 130,000, perjury and obstruction of the OFS

A former Auckland liquidator has been jailed for four years after stealing $ 130,000 from two companies he was acting for, committing perjury, and obstructing an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

Geoffrey Martin Smith, 67, was sentenced today after a trial with just one judge in Auckland District Court earlier this year.

After defending himself during the trial, Smith was found guilty by Judge Russell Collins in September of two counts of robbery by a person in a special relationship, two counts of perjury, and two counts of obstruction of an investigation.

Smith, who claimed he was immune from prosecution and was defamed by the SFO, was found to have stolen around $ 130,000 from two companies, HAD Garments and HB Garments, after being appointed a liquidator in 2013.

The companies were known as truck shops and they sold goods by trucks on credit that required small payments over many months.

Smith’s perjury charges concerned documents he filed in civil proceedings related to the same settlement activities.

The obstruction charges were for his willful breach of two separate notices issued by the SFO during its investigation.

After today’s sentencing, SFO Director Julie Read said Smith abused her position of trust to defraud the two companies.

“He also actively misled the court in proceedings related to those companies and obstructed an investigation by the SFO,” it said in a statement.

“These crimes resulted in the expenditure of additional public funds to resolve this case. The SFO welcomes the court’s sentencing decision, which recognized the seriousness of the perjury and obstruction charges.”

Smith is already behind bars for unrelated drug offenses and has a long court record.

The Superior Court declared him bankrupt for the third time in 2017 after failing to pay HAD Garments and HB Garments recipient Andrew McKay of BDO some $ 595,775.

Most of the debt owed, $ 540,000, was tied to when he was serving as liquidator for the companies, court documents obtained by the Herald show.

Smith was ordered to reimburse the trustee after a 2016 Superior Court ruling found that while Smith was a liquidator, $ 852,998 was distributed from the companies’ accounts, but $ 540,000 could not be accounted for.

It also filed for bankruptcy in 1989 and 2008.

Smith’s past crimes also include tax fraud, document forgery, and theft.

He and his wife, Barbara Jennifer Smith, were found guilty and convicted of 94 counts of crimes committed between 2001 and 2006 against the Tax Administration Act.

At the time, they operated a trading company like Trellis and Fence Warehouse in the small Waikato town of Te Kauwhata. The business sold trellises, fences, posts and railings and from about 2001 also sold firewood, primarily to Solid Energy in Huntly.

An approach to the Internal Revenue Department by an employee triggered an investigation by the IRD in 2004. The couple’s unpaid taxes amounted to at least $ 570,000, the Crown said.

Smith was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and his wife was sentenced to nine months of house arrest. Their appeals were dismissed in 2008.

In 2000, he was sentenced to nine months in prison after being convicted of theft and fraud while operating the Waikato-based New Zealand Free Ambulance Service.

His wife was also part of the scam and ordered to return $ 6,593 of the stolen money to the Order of Saint John. Smith was also convicted of two counts of fraud for his attempt to search the ambulance service with a false document in 1996.

In 1988, he was convicted of fraud for the false valuation of machinery that cost $ 159,000. He served nine months in periodic detention and was ordered to pay reparations.

In response to earlier requests for comment from the Herald, Smith has said his name was “copyrighted, copyrighted, and proprietary only” and demanded payment for its use. He claimed that the Herald already owed him about $ 50 million.