A senior Grahamstown police officer's attempt to have his sentence reduced backfired when details emerged that earned him twice as many years in jail.
A senior Grahamstown police officer's attempt to have his sentence reduced backfired when details emerged that earned him twice as many years in jail.
Andre Riekert Boshoff was a Lieutenant-Colonel at the Alice police station when he defrauded the state.
He was initially sentenced to seven years in prison, effectively, but will now be serving a minimum of 15 years.
Boshoff was charged with, pleaded guilty to and was convicted of eight offences in the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in Port Elizabeth.
He pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud, corruption, defeating or obstructing the course of justice, incitement to commit a crime and theft.
The former policeman was arrested in his Grahamstown house in December 2011.
The charges against Boshoff arose from dishonest schemes he'd designed to earn money from police informers.
According to court papers he registered a person as an informer, stole firearms from the police station and had them planted in or near people's homes.
He then claimed to receive tip offs from an informer and once the firearms had been recovered, Boshoff made a claim for a reward to be paid to the informer.
He saw to it that the informer paid him the lion’s share of the reward.
On four counts of fraud Boshoff pocketed a total of R35 000. His informer received R10 000.
The Port Elizabeth court sentenced him to a total of 18 years in prison on 31 August 2012, but some of the sentences were to run concurrently.
During his appeal trial in late September this year however, Judge Clive Plasket said the prescribed minimum sentence to be applied was a 15-year sentence for law enforcement officers found guilty of an offence involving more than R10 000.
