Accountant who stole millions from brothers gets 22 years in jail

The Gqeberha specialised commercial crimes court on Thursday sentenced a chartered accountant to an effective 22 years in jail for stealing more than R52m from two brothers, who were his clients.

The court found Jonathan Blow, 52, guilty on two counts of theft in September last year after he admitted guilt.

The court sentenced Blow to 15 years on each count but magistrate Vusiwe Mnyani ordered eight years for one count to run concurrently with the sentence for the other count. 

Blow was the sole director of PE Accounting Solutions, which was appointed to provide accounting services for two SuperSpar entities, one in Gqeberha and the other in Despatch.

National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Luxolo Tyali said that in Blow's plea explanation, he admitted he was given full access and administration rights to the two entities’ trading bank accounts used in the operation of the businesses.

In addition to the fees which he invoiced the businesses, he unlawfully transferred R40m from Sunridge SuperSpar and more than R11m from Despatch SuperSpar to his bank account. 

Blow made repayments totalling R16.3m to Sunridge SuperSpar and the client suffered a loss of R24.2m. He also made 24 repayments to Despatch SuperSpar totalling R4,9m, meaning that shop suffered a R6.5m loss. 

“The state argued that they were not repayments, rather Blow made the deposits so as not to get caught,” Tyali said. 

Blow blamed his crimes on his gambling habit.   

Tyali said the NPA’s Asset Forfeiture Unit salvaged only R1.8m from Blow, who had used some of the stolen money to buy shares in a Spar at Kariega. 

In aggravation of sentence, state advocate Lise Keech called Paul Barnes and Peter Barnes, the brothers who owned the two businesses from which Blow stole.

They told the court how they had suffered and are still suffering from Blow's crimes. They had considered Blow “a brother and friend”. 

TimesLIVE