It's becoming more apparent that the parole board in New Zealand is a racist entity that ensures a disproportionate amount of Maori are incarcerated in our jails. That’s the inference given after reading about convicted fraudster Alex Swney’s early release.Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:
Parole Board poised to release disgraced former Heart of the City CEO Alex Swney from prison
Alex Swney, the disgraced former chief executive of Auckland's Heart of the City business organisation, is to be freed from prison after his first appearance before the Parole Board.
Swney, 59, was jailed for five years and seven months in June 2015 after being convicted of tax evasion and fraud involving more than $4 million over a decade.
4 million dollars over a decade… FFS! How does anybody even manage to get away with a crime that huge for so long?
Swney became eligible for parole on May 5, almost four years before his statutory release date of January 25, 2021.
I was under the impression that an inmate didn’t become eligible for parole until they’d served a third of their sentence… and whoever heard of a prisoner being released on their first parole hearing anyway? Would that have anything to do with Swney not being Maori perhaps?
While he was granted parole, Swney remains in prison and it is understood he will not be released until next month.
When he is released he will likely remain bankrupt for another year.
Which basically just means he can't run a business.
The married father-of-two pleaded guilty to charges laid by the Inland Revenue and Serious Fraud Office for offending that Judge Grant Fraser said involved "a gross breach of trust".
Among the offences were 229 false invoices used to obtain $2,527,005 from Heart of the City between February 2004 and October 2014. He was also charged with not paying taxes of $1,757,147.
Financial statements filed to the Incorporated Societies register showed that Heart of the City recovered just $353,623 of the $2,527,005 Swney obtained from it.
The parole board’s decision means Swney has effectively gotten away with embezzling over two million dollars just from the Heart of the City. What a fucking travesty! I mean who wouldn’t spend a year in jail for a couple of million dollars?
What makes this all the worse is that the parole board refuses to release on compassionate grounds solo Maori mums dying of cancer while a convicted fraudster like Alex fucking Swney who stole over $4 million gets a free pass.
Only when the parole board stops their clearly racist decision making process and actually applies our laws properly will the prison population decline. Until then we will just have to put up with white-collar fraudsters like Alex Swney being hit on the wrist with a wet bus ticket because of the colour of their skin.
