Kiwiblog

Convicted fraduster Kumar Choudary is listed as a Director of Kumar Karkare Enterprises Ltd and OSCM International Ltd.

Aspiring Labour candidate Neelam Choudary has been a co-director of Kumar Karkare Enterprises Ltd since May 2004. That company has ceased to carry on business and the Registrar is about to remove it.

Of more interest is OSCM International Ltd. They have three Directors. The first, since Oct 2005 is Pavitra Roy (who may be the same Pavitra Roy who stood for the Progressives in 2008). The other two are Kumar Choudary and Lourdu Joseph William Reddy – both convicted of six fraud charges in December 2008. They became Directors of OSCM in February 2009.

So what is the problem? Well if you have been convicted of a crime involving dishonesty (such as fraud) within the last five years, you are ineligible under s382(1)(b) of the Companies Act to be a Director. And both William Reddy and Kumar Choudary signed Director consent forms in February 2009 – just two months after they had been convicted. The forms explicitly make clear that you can not sign if convicted.

His form is attached here – choudary.

Now Choudary I presume faces liability both for signing the form, despite beign prohibited, but also remaining a Director of the other company, along with his wife Neelam. The maximum penalty under s373(4) is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years or to a fine not exceeding $200,000.

Bill Ralston writes:

He may have resigned but Richard Worth is not the only victim in this debacle. When you play in the muck you will get dirt on you. It’s a lesson Phil Goff forgot last week and it must take the gloss off the Mt Albert by-election result.

Goff made the mistake of personally championing Choudary’s allegations, and making it all about him.

It is obvious that Goff’s office first leaked the rumour to the Press Gallery that Labour had already warned Key of allegations of sexual harassment by Worth of another woman, who we now know is Neelam Choudary.

Leaving the Korean woman’s allegations to one side, it is also now apparent that the Choudary affair was largely a Labour set-up.

Personally I don’t think Goff was part of the set up. I think the most likely explanation is it was a group of Auckland activists. They took teh stuff to Goff and at first he did not think there was enough to attack Worth on – so instead he just sent it privately to Key. When Key’s COS came back and said he denies it but has been wanred, Goff was happy to leave it there as he probably himself doubted it all stacked up.

But then when Worth was dismissed as a Minister, Goff could not resist the chance to get it out there, so they leaked its existence. And at first it worked, until it became apparent how little proof there was, and that the picture drawn of the complainant was so misleading.  Goff should trusted his initial instincts to not go public with it.

Finally, however, thanks to the efforts of some bloggers and journalists in the gallery, more ugly facts emerged. Goff had sought to keep her name secret. For good reason. It soon became apparent Choudary was not just an ordinary low-level member of the Labour Party, she had tried to become a Labour MP last year.

By offering herself to the bear pit of Parliament she plainly demonstrated she was no shrinking violet incapable of fending off the blandishments of an aged Government minister.

Indeed. Tracy Watkins in the Dom Post sums it up best:

Meanwhile Mr Goff milked the woman’s status as an immigrant who was confused and distraught at Dr Worth’s intentions. When first asked by The Dominon Post if he knew the woman before she came to him, Mr Goff agreed he had, but only for a short time. By the next day, he had put it out there that she was a Labour Party member. When she was revealed this week as Auckland woman Neelam Choudary, it became clear she was no low-level member. She is prominent in Auckland Labour Party circles. The image of a frightened and traumatised woman doesn’t square with the recollections of reporters who came across her regularly on the campaign trail with Helen Clark.

Nor does it square with some of Mr Goff’s colleagues. The woman described as “strikingly beautiful” by Mr Goff is forthright and supremely confident, according to some. Her husband was convicted of an immigration scam.

It is interesting that Goff’s colleagues are quoted on this. Some of them are not too pleased I dare say on the handling of this.

Back to Ralston:

From the beginning, when she first received approaches from Worth, she had kept Goff in the loop. The Labour leader even endorsed the idea she should meet Worth.

We also found out that Choudary had been active on the ground in David Shearer’s by-election campaign in Mt Albert. Hence the inevitable conclusion Worth and the Government were clearly being set up by the Labour Party.

We’re still yet to hear why Choudary was seen having coffee with Worth a month after she alleges the texts and phone calls stopped.

I now find it impossible to give her and Goff’s allegations any credibility. She has insisted Key keep secret the content of the texts that Worth supposedly sent her, so she has made it impossible for the public to verify her claims. Certainly on the basis of the few innocuous texts released so far there is no evidence of any sexual propositions or harassment.

From what we’ve seen so far in the Choudary affair, Worth is guilty, at worst, of being a silly old fool.

No one has come out of this business with their reputation enhanced by what now must be seen as a Labour Party dirty trick.

Goff has ducked for cover, after a couple of weeks of drip-feeding juicy tidbits to the media and taking the moral high ground. That can only be seen as an admission he was wrong.

Yes when Goff won’t front up to media, you know things have gone wrong.

TV3 last night reported:

Last December Neelam Choudary’s husband, Kumar Choudary, was convicted for his role in an immigration scam.

Today one of his victims told 3 News most of his dealings were in fact with Neelam and that the Choudarys have ruined his life.

Siddesh Sajjan says the Choudarys are dangerous people and he is concerned for his safety.

That is why he does not want to be identified.

They named him, but did not show his face.

He also says his dealings with the Choudarys left him in the darkest place of his life.

“I was very upset and I was in such terrible pain,” says immigration scam victim Siddesh Sajjan.

Sajjan first met with Neelam Choudary in 2002 when she had advertised herself as a recruitment agent and immigration specialist.

“She’s the one who started it,” says Sajjan. “Then later on she tried to skip out of it and she involved her husband into this matter.”

One year on the Choudarys charged Sajjan $15,000 in fees with the promise of an offer of employment and help with immigration.

None of the promises came through.

“She will do anything for money, for fame,” says Sajjan.

Mrs Choudary was not charged, but her husband has been convicted for the fraud. His sentence is at this stage, unknown.

People representing the Choudarys contacted Sajjan this morning.

“They said that if I stop talking about her, they wanted to pay my money back,” says Sajjan.

This is the most disturbing part. He got offered $15,000 to shut up. Who made the offer and what are their links?

However, Sajjan says this is no longer about money. Right now the Labour supporter wants to talk to Phil Goff about the character of Neelam Choudary.

Over at NBR I conclude my column on the Choudary allegations with the question about whether Phil Goff will meet or refuse to meet this Labour Party voter who is a victim of crime?

I,like many, fell for the story that Phil Goff told. I went on radio and said that Worth must go, on the basis of the earlier allegation on top of the later criminal complaint.

One interviewer asked me if I was saying that MPs can’t remain MPs or Ministers if they have an affair, and I was quick to say no that is not the case – a consensual affair is no disqualification for office. And neither is hitting on someone of the other sex (or same sex if that is your flavour). If that was the threshold then Parliament would be a far smaller place.

But the case that Phil Goff drew was of an unworldy timid woman who was so scared of Dr Worth that she did not know how to get him to stop, so finally in desperation went to Phil Goff, and Goff intervened to get him to stop. It was the harrassing predatory nature of the allegations that was damning. That does not excuse Dr Worth for any of his actions, but it does change very much the story that was being told.

The revelation that the woman was not just a party member or even a party activist, but tried to become a Labour MP in 2008 changes things dramatically. I know lots of parliamentary candidates for Labour and National. They are not unwordly shrinking violets who can’t handle themselves.

In fact the notion that an apsiring parliamentary candidate was so overwhelmed by the attention of an MP, she could not tell him to piss off, is ludicrous when you consider the role of an MP is to get up in Parliament and rip into the MPs and Ministers on the other side of the House.

This is not to say that Worth was not creepy towards her, and did not behave stupidly, inappropriately or even worse. He may well have – and is suffering the consequences.

But Phil Goff massively misrepresented the story in terms of how he portrayed this.

I am finding the story full of holes. She said she took the matter to Goff so the calls would stop, but it is now clear she went to Goff long before the calls became allegedly inappropriate.

She also said at another stage she went to Goff because Worth had offered her a job – but in today’s Herald we learn she contacted Goff before she had the coffee with Worth where he allegedly made the job offer.There are lots of things not adding up here.

I have had coffee with many Labour Party candidates. I trust they don’t all ring up Phil Goff for permission before they have a coffee with someone from another party.

I’m trying to put together a timeline of this whole thing, and will blog it when I have. The more you look the more you find things such as Barry Soper’s contention today that Phil Goff’s office were the ones who originally leaked the existence of the allegation to the media, so they would ask John Key if there had been any other complaints.

Audrey Young and Patrick Gower write:

The husband of the woman who accused ousted minister Richard Worth of sending her sleazy text messages was convicted of an immigration scam. …

Has he been sentenced? It was originally scheduled for February.

Labour leader Phil Goff said last night he was concerned that the woman had been named and that her husband was being brought into the story.

The reason she has been identified is because Goff and Rudman could not keep their mouths shut. Goff’s description of her as “strikingly beautiful” was hugely important in people identifying her – along with Rudman’s revelation she was not just a member or activist but in fact had tried to become an MP.

His status had “nothing to do with the accuracy or the credibility or the veracity of what she has said was her experience with Richard Worth”, he said.

Well that depends on what her knowledge was of what her husband was doing. One may be aware but not be complicit.

One of the victims, Siddesh Sajjan, last night told the Herald he met Kumar and Neelam Choudary in 2002 and paid them $3500 for a job offer that turned out to be fake.

He said that although Neelam Choudary was not charged, “she is a troublemaker”.

This is first hand testimony that she was involved with making a job offer. Now as she was not charged, it is probable that she did not realise the job did not exist, but why get involved with making an offer if you don’t know that it is genuine.

A Labour supporter who lives in Mt Roskill and voted for Mr Goff, he said he had considered warning the party about her earlier when she became heavily involved with it, and regretted not doing so.

So the victim of the fraud is not a National Party member, activist or complainant.

Mr Goff said Mrs Choudary was now under enormous stress.

And who the fuck caused that? Who told the country she is strikingly beautiful allowing her to be recognised? Who has tried to keep the story on the front page for day after day by drip feeding e-mails and advising her not to hand the e-mails over to the PM’s Chief of Staff? Who tried to turn it into a political circus by insisting he attend any meeting with the PM as her “support person”?

Tracy Watkins and Clio Francis reports:

Labour leader Phil Goff yesterday accused National of outing the woman after Naleem Choudary was named on the Right-wing blog Whale Oil as the person claiming Dr Worth offered her plum government positions and subjected her to “vulgar and sexually explicit” phone calls.

The desperate idiot. Goff is the one who helped out her. His comments on her apperance combined with Rudman’s column allowed her to be identified.

The fact is that key people in National have known her identify for a week and they never ever leaked it – despite probably knowing about the fraud conviction. Could you have imagined Labour doing the same and not leaking her identity if she was a National candidate with a convicted fraudaster husband complaining about a Labour Minister? Shit no – her name would have been out within minutes.

I also know that TV3 made a decision to name the woman some hours before her name appeared on a blog. Why? Because Rudman and Goff had effectively identified her already.

Mr Goff refused to confirm the woman’s identity but said he was “really sorry” that a name was out there.

“What does this mean for any other person that wants to stand up and say, `here is a person in a position of power, they’re misusing their power’?”

It means never ever use Phil Goff again as your sexual harrassment advisor.

Mr Goff said he had never hidden the woman’s Labour Party affiliation, including from Mr Key.

“There’s no question at any point other than that she was a member of the Labour Party. I said that the very first time I spoke to John Key and the very first time I spoke to the media about it.”

There is a big big difference between being a member of a political party, and having sought a parliamentary nomination. It is a rare breed of person who wants to become an MP and is prepared to live such a public life by doing so. I will blog more on this later.

Mr Goff accused individuals “with close links to the National Party” of pressuring Ms Choudary to “shut up”, and said there was a deliberate attempt to undermine her.

Not sure who he is talking about, but I actually want her to supply all the text messages – in both directions – as Goff promised.

“Clearly, a political decision was made from the National Party that they would not respect her privacy and that they would attack her credibility.”

The desperate smear to cover up the fact he is more responsible than anyone except Brian Rudman for outing her.

Both TV stations have revealed (as did Whale Oil earlier in the day) that Neelam Choudary is Complainant A. She stood for Labour’s nomination for Botany in the 2008 election – so this was someone who wanted to be an MP – not a shy retiring unworldy type.

I will blog more on this tomorrow. But it is a matter of public record that Neelam’s husband has was convicted in December 2008:

Kumar Akkineni Choudary and Lourdu Joseph William Reddy, who both moved to New Zealand from India in the 1990s, tricked more than 20 Indian and Chinese immigrants, either already in the country or overseas, into paying thousands of dollars. …

An Indian national now living in the Auckland suburb of Avondale told the Herald he met Choudary and his wife Neelam in 2002 after hearing about the scheme from a friend back in India who read an advertisement in a newspaper.

The highly qualified 32-year-old was asked to pay $3500 in return for a job offer.

“They said that if you paid a bit of extra money, they could get the case sped up. They said that they had some contacts with the immigration office people.”

About five days after their fist meeting, the Choudarys sent the man a job offer working on computers for a company called Xzact.

The Herald article does not state that Neelam was charged with anything, but the wording refers to the Choudarys plural as making the job offers.

Choudary was found guilty on six fraud charges.

I repeat my earlier call that all the texts – in both directions – should be made available. Public damaging allegations have been made that could force an MP out of Parliament, and I think we need to see what the replies were to understand why the alleged harrassment went on for so long.