Ex-Steinhoff executive hit with ten-year jail sentence – will serve five

Steinhoff’s former CFO, Ben la Grange, was sentenced to ten years in prison on charges of fraud related to the manipulation of the group’s financial statements.

The Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crimes Court ruled that five years of La Grange’s sentence will be suspended for five years on condition that he’s not found guilty of fraud in a higher court during that period. 

He will also have to provide evidence to the state in any further criminal proceedings against directors, officers and employees of Steinhoff, the South African Police Service said in a statement on Thursday

La Grange entered into a plea agreement for one count of fraud of more than R367 million, the police said. 

The National Prosecuting Authority and Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation in March secured arrest warrants for Jooste and former legal head Stehan Grobler, with the two men named as the lead suspects involved in the 2017 demise of the company that owned Conforama in France and Mattress Firm in the US.

Jooste took his own life on March 21, after being notified of the arrest warrants.

Grobler is due to appear again on Oct. 4, according to the NPA’s regional spokeswoman Lumka Mahanjana. La Grange’s sentence is the NPA’s first conviction of a former executive in the Steinhoff case.

Dirk Schreiber, the company’s former European finance chief, became the first person to be imprisoned over the scandal a year ago. A German court handed him a 3 1/2-year jail sentence after he was convicted of accounting violations and aiding credit fraud, although this was reduced by a year because of how long the probe took.

Schreiber provided information to the investigations in South Africa.

Jooste was also charged in the German case, but failed to show up in court for his trial in April 2023. He only appeared once, in South Africa’s parliament, when in 2018 he told lawmakers in Cape Town that the company’s woes originated from a protracted dispute with a former partner.

George Alan Evans, who was charged in that case next to Jooste, settled his case by paying €30,000. Ex-director Siegmar Schmidt received a two year suspended sentence from the German court.

In 2022, South Africa’s main stock exchange fined La Grange R2 million for violating listing rules. This primarily related to a handwritten document that was given to him by Jooste, from which La Grange was told to generate a €23.5 million ($26 million) invoice.