Clifford gets 12 years for R155m scam

The Herald reports that tears flowed and emotions ran high in the Port Elizabeth High Court when Clifford was jailed for fraud and theft. Clifford's Usapho Trust collapsed in 2000 and investors in the pyramid scheme, ranging from prominent businessmen to pensioners countrywide, lost R155m. According to the report, gone was the cockiness the 65-year-old Clifford and her four co-conspirators had displayed during the trial which started in 2004. Most of them cried when the sentence was handed down. Clifford was jailed for a further two years for stealing R30 000 from one of her investors. Judge Frank Kroon ordered that the two sentences should run concurrently, meaning Clifford will spend an effective 12 years in jail. Her daughter, Dalene Conway, and former Absa bank official Niel Terblanche were each sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment. Clifford's sister, Thelma van Rooyen, and former Absa official Gerard Visagie were the only ones who escaped direct imprisonment. They were sentenced to three years' imprisonment wholly suspended for five years. Full report in The Herald