Fellow offender Kerry Harford reached a confidential settlement with the board and was sentenced to four years and three months’ prison. He was paroled in June after serving 18 months.

But Swann was held responsible for most of the offending – $15.1 m – and this week Justice Graham Panckhurst ordered the fortfeiture of $4.4 m of property and the payment of $6m.

Swann had refused to co-operate with the tracing of assets and “his attitude throughout has been the very antithesis of co-operation”, Justice Panckhurst said.

He ordered 33 items to be forfeited, including land, cars and boats worth a total of $3,492,583.

Swann’s wife, Anna Devereux, has until August 19 to hand over the family home in Dunedin and to pay $10,000 in outstanding rates. However, she was awarded items and money to the value of $55,000 as her interest in the property.

Source: NZPA (Dominion Post 4 Sept. p. A11).

Yesterday a last minute application for an adjournment reached the Court late in the afternoon from John M Carr’s lawyer. A Memorandum of consent was then received by the Court  from the Crown and this meant the case has been deferred until 28 September 2010.  One must assume that Mr John M Carr has very good reasons for not being able to come to New Zealand from the United States to appear in Court to enter his plea on the eight criminal charges brought against him by the Ministry of Economic Development (MED) under the Financial Reporting Act 1993. Those reasons may be linked to his business relationship with former Orange County Mayoral candidate Mildred Fernandez, who faces charges in the Florida Courts of racketeering, grand theft, bribery and accepting illegal campaign contributions. Her campaign treasurer from 1 October 2009 up until her arrest on 16 April 2010 was John Malcolm Carr, a certified public accountant (CPA), based in San Antonio, Texas.

John Malcolm Carr is President, Director and registered agent for Better Business Services Inc, with its principal Florida office at 1621 Hillcrest St, Orlando, Florida 32803. His address as registered agent of this corporation is given in Texas State Records as 22588 Scenic Loop Rd, San Antonio TX 78255. However, in Florida State records it is given as 1621 Hillcrest St, Orlando, FL. 32803-4809, USA. In Florida state records his address as President and Director is given as 22588 Scenic Loop Rd, San Antonio, TX 78255 while in Texas records those same roles tie him to the Hillcrest St, Orlando address.

John M Carr owns and directs numerous New Zealand registered companies, including four that are the primary focus of the criminal case being brought against him in NZ by the MED: Velocity Partners Ltd, PJ Digital Ltd, Shelf Company No. 10 Ltd, and First Virtual Deposit & Nominee Ltd.

Fernandez, who was standing for Mayor of Orange County, was arrested on April 16, 2010 on charges of racketeering, grand theft, bribery and accepting illegal campaign contributions, in a sting operation involving an undercover agent posing as a developer. Her treasurer was John M Carr from 1 October 2009 up until her arrest in April.

Court documents show Fernandez had no idea that video cameras were rolling when she took what she thought were campaign contributions from someone she thought was a local developer.  

So, when investigators questioned her about taking a $1,000 cash donation from the man, which is over the legal limit, she denied ever taking the envelope. When investigators asked her where the $1,000 cash was, she denied knowing that there was $1,000 cash in the envelope, saying she gave all her donations to her campaign accountant [John Malcolm Carr CPA]. When they asked whether she had given that specific envelope to her campaign accountant [John Malcolm Carr CPA], she said she had not; the $1,000 was never reported [by Mr John Malcolm Carr CPA] as a campaign contribution and has disappeared.

Fernandez’s treasurer John Malcolm Carr CPA filed an amended report for the first quarter of this year (from 01/01/2010 to 03/31/2010) on Tuesday 27 April at 2:35pm, just one hour before Fernandez was arrested. Mr John M Carr’s initial typed report for the first quarter was filed on 12 April, 2010. His hand-written amended report filed on 27 April showed Cash and Check contributions of $57,500 [amended from $59,120] and expenditure of $55,369.12 [amended from $54,853.92].

The total monetary contribution to date were likewise amended to $138,851 [originally $138,603.40] with amended total expenditure of $79,671.89 [amended from $79,840.27]. The signature of John M Carr appears next to that of Mildred Fernandez in both documents. Meticulous records of the quantum of each campaign contribution are recorded  (see references below). As of 31 August 2010, Mr John M Carr has not yet filed his treasurer’s summary of campaign donations for the period 1 April to 16 July 2010 that was due on 23 July 2010.

Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar says he has the proof that Fernandez corruptly used her office to get illegal donations for her now-defunct Orange County mayoral campaign. Her arrest was highly publicized. She was marched, in handcuffs, past television cameras. It is unclear whether her treasurer John M Carr CPA will be called to explain if he knows where the lost campaign contributions have gone.

References

Reports Filed: Florida Department of State – Division of Elections – Campaign Treasurer’s Report Summary

Treasurer John M Carr. Candidate Mildred Fernandez

http://www.ocfelections.com/Public%20Records/2010%20CTR/Fernandez/Fernandez.htm

Plea Deal On Table For Mildred Fernandez. Fri Jul 9, 1:57PM PT – WESH – Orlando 2:02 | 630 views

http://news.yahoo.com/video/politics-15749652/plea-deal-on-table-for-mildred-fernandez-20796801

County Commissioner Mildred Fernandez arrested

Mildred Fernandez was arrested on bribery charge 

April 28, 2010|By Susan Jacobson and David Damron, Orlando Sentinel

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-04-28/news/os-commissioner-mildred-fernandez-arreste20100427_1_contributions-county-commissioner-mildred-fernandez-building-project

Commissioner Avoids WFTV; Gov. To Appoint Replacement

Updated 28 June 2010

http://www.wftv.com/news/23290718/detail.html

Commissioner Arrested On 3 Felony Charges

Updated 28 April 2010

http://www.wftv.com/news/23280767/detail.html

Mildred Fernandez, a former IBM executive, was elected to the Orange County Board of Commissioners in 2004 and re-elected in 2008.

For full story see http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10660608

A detective inspector working on the case said police were unable to arrest the director before he left the country because of insufficient evidence. He is quoted as stating: “It was early days on the money-laundering inquiry. He was on our radar but we didn’t have grounds to arrest him.”

Criminal activities linked to prostitution and human trafficking, the international porn trade, drug and weapons trafficking, have all been linked to money laundering of the proceeds of crime.

International porn rings involving the trading and purchase of objectionable images of children and young persons, often involve money trails that can be tracked by the authorities across international borders. Company directors dealing with such material who hide behind bogus residential addresses will soon be flushed out as authorities get wise to such deception and when new laws of disclosure applying to all company directors are introduced to our parliament and enacted, as planned by Commerce Minister Hon Simon Power.

In early May this year the National Police Headquarters hosted a conference in Wellington that looked at the issues of money laundering and criminal connections within New Zealand, as well as overseas criminal links. It was not open to the public but a police spokesperson confirmed to the Society that one of the areas that was looked at in depth was the relationship between money laundering and crime, and shell companies.

Shell companies which have formed the basis of major ongoing investigations by Fairfax Media journalist Michael Field, whose widely-publicised articles have recently been published in the NZ Herald and Dominion Post, utilise “virtual offices” to shield company directors (and shareholders) from the scrutiny of enforcement agencies such as the National Enforcement Unit, the Serious Fraud Office and the IRD.

Company directors who are required by the Companies Act 1993 to register their bona fide residential addresses with the Companies Office are instead registering their names against bogus residential addresses such as “virtual offices”, derelict unoccupied buildings, and their out-of-date addresses.

The Organised and Financial Crimes Agency of New Zealand (OFCANZ) is being hampered in its job due to false and bogus entries on the New Zealand Companies website, many of which were going unchecked by the Registrar of Companies, despite numerous complaints. Enforcement agencies seeking to serve papers on company directors and/or obtain explanations for their dubious financial dealings involving the apparent flouting of the law, as reported, are finding it very difficult to make progress. Such agencies are being given the digitus impudicus by arrogant company directors, some of whom are insisting that the enforcement agencies deal with their lawyers rather than with them. Some of these directors who reside outside New Zealand, register themselves as New Zealand residents for tax purposes, when in fact their presence on New Zealand terra firma is as “virtual” as their bogus company offices and ‘residential addresses’.

A director of a New Zealand firm linked to arms traffickers has lost her bid to have legal action against her stopped.  Lu Zhang, 28, is accused of with making false statements in company registration firms after she declared her office address was her residence in 75 companies she registered. She was charged after a plane loads of weapons including rockets and grenades from North Korea bound for Iran was seized in Bangkok last year.

The Russian-made aircraft was allegedly hired by SP Trading, which was registered with an Auckland address and listed Zhang as a director, according to the Companies Office.

In Auckland District Court yesterday Zhang’s lawyer Frank Deliu told the court the action should stop and she had been selectively prosecuted by the Companies Office and that others had done the same, The New Zealand Herald reported.

Judge David Harvey ordered non-publication of documents submitted by Mr Deliu alleging ministers MPs and judges had supplied incorrect information when registering companies. Zhang entered no plea and was remanded to appear again next month.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/7755618/bid-to-stop-legal-action-fails-for-director/

For earlier stories see:

Probe into huge arms seizure
By Andrew Koubaridis
4:00 AM Saturday Jan 9, 2010

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10619216

Kiwi company linked to arms
4:00 AM Sunday Dec 20, 2009

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10616608

NZ firm linked to gun-runners’ plane
By Rachel Tiffen
4:00 AM Friday Dec 18,

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10616243

The report says the taxpayer footed the bill for airfares, meals and other transportation worth nearly $6000.

The Minister’s trip was reviewed after the Minister was accused of misusing money and failing to declare free flight upgrades

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/corruption-watchdog-to-investigate-macdonalds-expenses-20100610-xznx.html?autostart=1

“The question is has any of these [credit card spending] acts come within the purview of the Crimes Act?” former Labour party MP and lawyer Mr John Tamihere told the media.

Ministers who have rorted taxpayers by charging their ministerial credit cards for viewing sleaze porn movies in hotel rooms, purchasing flowers and massages for a homosexual partner, and indulging themselves with much bigger ticket items, should face scrutiny within the purvue of the Crimes Act, suggests Mr Tamihere.

Theft as a public servant is how most New Zealanders view the actions of Shane Jones MP and other MPs who have rorted the system while serving as Ministers. Major employers such as Flectcher Building and Telecom have confirmed through their respective spokespersons that the misuse of company credit cards in this way in their busineses would lead to offending employees being dismissed or disciplined. Just paying the stolen money back is just not sufficient ‘punishment’. (Note: In the UK the former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith lost her job after revelations that her husband had charged one porn movie to taxpayers).

And what about the free interest on the purchase of these these sleazy ministers have garnered for themselves?

Until such time as they were found out to have broken the law and recompensed parliamentary services for the cost of the sleaze item(s) purchased, these corrupt ministers of the crown have had to pay no interest on the money they ‘borrowed’ or stole – from the public trough. One Minister has had to pay back $6,450 in personal spending including costs for viewing in-room porn. The Prime Minister, John Key should show some leadership and insist that all such Ministers pay back the interest advantage they had in having had the taxpayer cover all these expenses over a period while they had to pay nothing and no interest. Or better still point to the fact that such corrupt, loose-thinking snout owners are not fit to be in public leadership and do something about it.

Source of Tamihere quote:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3799983/Rules-on-ministerial-credit-card-use-loose

His residential address of 27 Northwood Avenue, Albany, North Shore City, is listed against each of these companies. The information contained in the Banned Directors and Managers details published on the Companies website have been taken from the records of the Ministry of Economic Development and Insolvency and Trustee service.

that films must be refused classification if they contain:

descriptions or depictions of child sexual abuse or any other exploitative or offensive descriptions or depictions involving a person who is, or appears to be, a child under 18 years; gratuitous, exploitative or offensive depictions of: … cruelty or real violence which are very detailed or which have a high impact; sexual violence,”  Richard Egan said. 

“The young captives in Salo who were sexually abused, raped, tortured and forced to eat excrement were portrayed as being under the age of 18.  One of the actors was only 17 when the film was made.”

The Classification Review Board decision to overturn the ban, like the Classification Board decision last month, was not unanimous.   Both boards claimed that the new Salo DVD’s inclusion of additional material explaining the film’s background would mitigate the impact on the viewer.

“This claim doesn’t make sense,” Richard Egan said.  “Even Salo supporters concede that additional material on a DVD usually goes unwatched – so it would not affect the extreme impact on the viewer of certain scenes in the film.”

The Review Board suggested that the consumer advice on the film – that it contains “scenes of torture and degradation, sexual violence and nudity” – would prevent viewers from seeing the DVD if they are likely to be offended by it.

“Offensiveness is not the issue,” Richard Egan said.  “This consumer advice could act as an inducement to paedophiles or others who take pleasure in viewing the extreme degradation of others.  Yesterday’s Review Board ruling has set a very dangerous precedent.”
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