Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Community 'betrayed' by defrauding of RSA

Updated at 2:45 pm on 2 August 2012

Kapiti mayor Jenny Rowan says she feels betrayed and let down by the offending of a community board member found guilty of defrauding the local RSA.

On Wednesday 73-year old Donald Moselen, a former president of the Otaki Returned & Services Association, was convicted in the Levin District Court of dishonestly using an RSA cheque in 2007 to get a medal mounted.

He had claimed the cheque was for someone else who could not afford to get the mounting done.

Moselen, who earlier this year was fined $500 for wearing medals that he did not earn, has been ordered to pay the RSA $500 and also repay the cheque.

He has now resigned from the Otaki Community Board. The Kapiti Coast District Council says the fraud conviction would have given the board legal grounds to have him removed under the Local Government Act, had he not resigned.

Ms Rowan says the council and community feel duped by Moselen. She says she has considering writing to the Local Government Minister to recommend routine police checks on people standing for local office.

In sentencing, Judge Leslie Atkins mentioned Moselen's prior convictions from the 1950s for dishonesty and theft but did not take them into account when sentencing.

An RSA member, John Taylor, says the sentence is laughable, and no one in the community will be happy about it.

Moselen was president of the Otaki RSA for 10 years until December last year.

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