Damas Tutehau Flohr (69) pleaded guilty to seven charges of causing losses by deception. He was convicted and remanded in custody for sentence next month.
The Crown case was that, between about December 2008 and December 2009, Tahitian-born Flohr repeatedly asked for and was given money by his Dunedin pastor and almost a dozen other church members, some of whom effectively handed over their life savings.
Flohr said the money was for legal costs and other fees needed to free up millions of dollars held in an account at the New York Mellon Bank. Those funds were said to be from an oil pipeline contract in Nigeria.
Because some of the church members had known him for many years and were family friends, and because he was a fellow church member, they felt sorry for him. They accepted he was having financial difficulties and continued to give him money, which was then transferred overseas through Western Union. They all believed him when he said they would get their money back.
In April 2009, Auckland woman Evelyn Wordsworth, the sister of pastor Melvyn Trevena, contacted the New York Mellon Bank because of her concerns about the legitimacy of what she was being told and the documents Flohr had shown her to confirm his claims. The advice she received from the bank's fraud department was it was a scam - a typical advance fee fraud.
Mrs Wordsworth nevertheless handed over another $81,000 to Flohr during the following few months, her total losses amounting to $305,709.92.
Mr Trevena and his wife lost $246,519.31; ''careful savers'' 92-year-old Edward Hagen and his wife lost $198,692.98, essentially their life savings; Neelttjie Gaudelius lost $59,000, of which ''not a bean'' had been repaid, placing her in a difficult position financially; Janice McCraw lost $2500, Surrey and Diane Watts, $3800 and Kathleen Bowman, $36,993.15.
Crown counsel Robin Bates told the jurors on Monday Flohr obtained the money from the various people by deception, making false representations ''on numerous occasions'' about $US30 million due from an oil contract in Nigeria, money available in the United States and the United Kingdom and property interests in Tahiti he could sell to cover the funds, if necessary.
Mr Bates said the accused intended to deceive the people through his stories which were not, and could not, be correct. He knew the various scenarios were ''materially false'' or was reckless as to their truth and, as a result, caused losses totalling $853,215.36 to those who gave him money.
Flohr denied all seven charges until early yesterday afternoon when, after extended discussions in the jury's absence, defence counsel Max Winders asked for the charges to be put again.
Judge Michael Crosbie said the guilty pleas to all seven counts meant Flohr accepted everything the Crown had set out in its opening on Monday.
And whatever the jurors might think about ''the whys and wherefores of why these people gave him money, they did''.
The Crown accepted Flohr had a view he was going to get the millions of dollars held in a New York bank and that was his reason for asking the various people for money.
''He would not be the first person in the world to be taken in by these things'', the judge said.
Had the case gone to jurors to decide, the question they would have been asking was whether the accused's belief changed from justifiably believing he was able to ask people for money, to dishonestly getting money from them.
His actions had affected the victims, and his plea reflected that, Judge Crosbie said.
