The late Markus Jooste, former head of the Steinhoff Group. (Photo: Rodger Bosch/AFP)
Hein Odendaal, the former auditor of Steinhoff, was sentenced to R2 million or four years imprisonment in the Pretoria Commercial Court on Thursday after pleading guilty.
Odendaal (68) was given a further two-year prison sentence which was suspended for five years, on the condition that he is not again found guilty of an offense in terms of the Act on the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities and that he serves one year of corrective supervision.
Odendaal entered into a plea agreement with the state.
At the time, investors and pension funds lost billions of rand when Steinhoff’s fraudulent income statements became known.
Katlego Mogale, spokesperson for the Falcons, says Odendaal’s sentence stems from his participation in the Steinhoff saga, where in his position at the company he failed to report to the police the fraud committed by creating fictitious income which led to false and misleading audited financial statements.
Odendaal handed himself over to the Falcons’ investigation team for serious commercial crime just hours before other defendants in the Steinhoff case were due to appear in court on February 14 last year.
His conviction is the fifth successful decision since the Steinhoff scandal came to light in 2017.
The case against Stéhan Grobler, former director, is expected to continue on May 14. He was fined R359 million in 2024 for false financial statements submitted over four years.
Markus Jooste, the CEO of Steinhoff, killed himself two years ago at his home in Hermanus, shortly before he was to be arrested.
Ben la Grange, the former CFO, was sentenced in October 2024 to ten years in prison, of which five years were suspended, for fraud of more than R367 million which included the manipulation of financial statements.
Gerhard Burger, a partner, was sentenced to five years in 2024 for insider trading.