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Jami-Lee Ross one of four men charged over National Party donations

Author
Sam Hurley, NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Wed, 19 Feb 2020, 2:43PM
Jami-Lee Ross is one of four men charged.
Jami-Lee Ross is one of four men charged.

Jami-Lee Ross one of four men charged over National Party donations

Author
Sam Hurley, NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Wed, 19 Feb 2020, 2:43PM

Jami-Lee Ross is one of four men charged by the Serious Fraud Office over allegations about two $100,000 donations to the National Party.

Suppression was lifted this afternoon for the 34-year-old former National Party member, who faces two charges for the alleged use of a "fraudulent device, trick, or stratagem" to split up the two donations.

Ross was kicked out of the party last year and lodged a complaint with police in October 2018 after making a string of allegations against National and its leader Simon Bridges.
Ross' complaint was referred by police to the SFO in March last year.

He claimed Bridges had asked him to collect a $100,000 donation from businessman Yikun Zhang, which was then split into smaller amounts to hide it.

Zhang, 48, is one of the other three men charged by the SFO.

The other two are businessman Shijia Zheng, 34, and Hengjia Zheng, 34. All three also lost their name suppression today.

The four men are due to appear in the Auckland District Court next week for their first appearance on the criminal charges, which were laid last month.

The charging documents, viewed by the Herald, allege two donations of $100,000 in 2017 and $100,050 in 2018 were made "in circumstances where the identity of the donor was not disclosed in the National Party's Annual Return of Party Donations".

"The defendants adopted a fraudulent device, trick, or stratagem whereby the 2018 donation was split into sums of money less than $15,000, and transferred into the bank accounts of eight people, before being paid to, and retained by, the National Party," the documents read.

The same allegation is made by the SFO for the 2017 donation.

Hengjia Zheng, listed as a site manager in court papers, is charged alongside his three co-defendants over the 2018 donation, while also being accused of supplying false information to the SFO.

Bridges, meanwhile, has always denied any wrongdoing.

In a statement from the National Party released shortly after charges were laid, the party said neither Bridges, or anyone in the party had been charged.

"I have always maintained. As I have always said the allegations against both myself and the party were baseless and false," Bridges said.

"This was always just a vendetta by a disgruntled former MP."

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