1080 blackmailer to be sentenced today
Jeremy Hamish Kerr was recently found to have been financially motivated.
UPDATED 10am: 1080 blackmailer jailed, cost Fonterra $20m
The businessman found to have been financially motivated in blackmailing Fonterra and Federated Farmers will be sentenced today, shortly before Fonterra announces its interim financial results.
Last month, the man who admitted threatening infant formula intended for the Chinese market was contaminated with 1080 poison was named as Jeremy Hamish Kerr.
Although he had pleaded guilty to two counts of blackmail last year and was convicted, he contested he was motivated by money.
Justice Geoffrey Venning, however, found he had made the threats for financial gain following a disputed facts hearing in the High Court at Auckland.
Crown lawyer Christine Gordon, QC, had told the court Kerr’s actions were financially motivated, because he received annual royalties of about $100,000 for the sale of another pest control product called Feratox.
In his defence, Kerr’s lawyer John Billington, QC, had argued money was only tight because of discretionary spending on another company he was developing, Nature’s Support, which makes possum fur belts.
But otherwise Kerr claimed to be comfortable and argued any small potential gain from 1080 being ditched was not the main motivation for the threats.
Kerr has been in custody awaiting sentencing for the past fortnight, with blackmail punishable by up to 14 years’ jail.
The Dairy Companies Association has estimated Kerr’s threats costs the New Zealand dairy sector millions of dollars.
Fonterra will announce its interim results later this afternoon.
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Hamish McNicol
Wed, 23 Mar 2016
Wed, 23 Mar 2016
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1080 blackmailer to be sentenced today
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