A High Court judge has reserved his decision about whether the disgraced former MP Taito Philip Field will have to pay the Solicitor-General for work Thai labourers did in exchange for immigration favours.
The Crown is seeking nearly $60,000 from Field who was sent to prison in 2009 after being found guilty of bribery and corruption and attempting to pervert the course of justIce.
He was charged after accepting labour from Thai people he had helped with immigration matters.
At the High Court in Auckland on Monday, Crown prosecutor David Johnstone said the Solicitor-General is seeking a pecuniary penalty for the benefits Field received, totalling $58,000.
The court heard arguments over the total amount of the benefits he accepted.
Defence lawyer Matthew Karam said the figures put forward by the Solicitor-General were inflated.
Field was the first politician in New Zealand to be convicted of corruption. An appeal against his conviction and sentence was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.
He was released last year having served one third of his six-year sentence .
