Peet Viljoen of Tammy Taylor fame tried to make people think that the criminal case against him and other people for allegedly stealing properties from the City of Johannesburg was concluded with him being found not guilty.
However, like many of his other narratives, this is not true and he was not acquitted.
Viljoen and five other people were arrested in 2010 for fraud and theft after properties that belonged to the Johannesburg Property Company (JPC) were “stolen”. They appeared in the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court and pleaded on 399 charges of fraud and corruption, but the magistrate passed away and they appeared before a new magistrate.
This is where Viljoen’s lawyer at the time argued that all the charges were not read out for each of the accused, but only once to save time. He also argued that the charges were not read out to the accused before the court asked them to plead, while the accuseds’ legal representatives did not expressly on record waive their right to have the charges read out to them before they had to plead.
He said the court also did not ask any of the accused whether they understand and appreciate the charges. The court also did not request the accused to enter a plea on each of the charges and registered only one plea per accused to cover all the charges they faced.
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Special review in the high court for Peet Viljoen’s criminal case
The matter was then referred for special review to the high court where it was heard by judge JJ Strijdom, who noted that the record also did not show that the minimum prescribed sentences were explained to the accused and checked if they understand it.
The judge also asked the opinion of the deputy director of Public Prosecutions who also concluded that there had been irregularities in the plea proceedings and that it should be set aside.
According to the judgement, the magistrate must be satisfied that the plea proceedings were in accordance with justice. Strijdom said he therefore had to determine if the proceedings were fair. He agreed with the magistrate that there were serious irregularities in the plea proceedings.
“In my mind, this is one of those exceptional cases where it can only be in the interest of justice to exercise the court’s inherent power to accede to the magistrate’s request,” Strijdom said.
Therefore, he ordered that the proceedings to date in the court is set aside and that it is remitted to the court to be heard by another presiding officer (magistrate). Judge AC Basson concurred.
ALSO READ: Peet Viljoen is not the best attorney to come out of Pretoria, LPC says
Melany Viljoen says all the charges against her husband ‘collapsed’
However, Viljoen’s wife, Melany, in an answer to questions from The Citizen says all the charges “collapsed”. She also says that “two senior judges of the Supreme Court eventually ruled that the entire criminal matter had to be set aside due to gross irregularities. The NPA withdrew all charges against Peet Viljoen Inc (the practice) in 2013. Peet was never charged in his private capacity.”
There are a few problems with these statements. Neither the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) nor any other court has set aside the criminal proceedings against Viljoen.
The SCA only gets involved after the matter has already been dealt with by a lower court and only then will it escalate through the hierarchy upwards, a legal expert says.
“Why would the SCA deal with a matter that is still not finalised in the regional court? Why was he not automatically reinstated as an attorney if our SCA found him to be wrongly or ‘maliciously prosecuted’ or targeted or innocently dragged into litigation?”
ALSO READ: No, Peet Viljoen of Tammy Taylor fame did not start a bank in SA as he claims
Melany Viljoen remains confident of her husband’s “legal victory”
However, Melany remains confident of her husband’s “legal victory” where “justice was finally served”. After the review in the high court last year, they shared their “victory” with The Citizen, also telling us that Peet “won” the case. The publication reported accordingly.
When it transpired that the judge actually said that the case must be heard from scratch in another court, The Citizen immediately took the story down from its website in about two hours.
Peet Viljoen was not happy about this, as he called the editor and threatened the publication with legal action.
From the judgment it is clear that Viljoen and his co-accused will have to appear in court again on the same charges. We asked the NPA if the case has been referred to another court and will add their answer as soon as we receive it.
ALSO READ: Legal Practice Council investigating Peet Viljoen practising as an attorney
Is an “attorney” like Peet Viljoen not required to know the law?
While attorneys are required to know the law and the meaning of a judgment such as this one, Peet Viljoen misrepresented by saying that he was acquitted. After that, his wife provided The Citizen with Chat GPT-authored summaries of his untrue version of events, demanding that the publication report accordingly.
Peet and Melany Viljoen did not tell the truth about his disbarment as an attorney and they did not tell the truth about him being acquitted of criminal charges. There are also allegations from various potential franchisees for their Tammy Taylor salons that the Viljoens did not tell them the truth either, after taking their money.
Despite this fact, the Viljoens remain active on social media, enjoying what seems to be a lack of consequences for their reported deeds.
What will be next?
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