The Johannesburg based billionaire stockbroker Sidney Frankel is being sued by a group seven individuals, who are accusing him, in a civil case, of inflicting sexual abuse on them more than twenty years ago.
As the events they describe are alleged to have occurred more than twenty years ago criminal charges can apparently no longer be laid under South Africa’s statute of limitations. Accordingly, the group are instead asking for civil damages of South African Rand 5 million each, or about US$ 412, 000, from the courts.
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The group are seeking damages for trauma they claim was inflicted upon them during the nine teen seventies and eighties when they were all young children.
South Africa’s Eye Witness News has been following the story, and it reports legal papers concerning the claims were served on Frankel’s lawyer a few days ago.
The incidents apparently took place at farms in the country owned by Frankel, at Kyalami and Mpumalanga, and at his home in Abbotsford in Johannesburg.
Frankel’s lawyer Billy Gundelfinger has confirmed to Eye Witness News that papers concerning a civil suit has indeed been served on his client and that the matter will be defended in court.
Gundelfinger has further said he will not respond to any of the allegations via the media. “This matter will be fully ventilated in court. That is where it is going to be completely appropriate for me to deal with these allegations. It’s safe to state that the matter will be strenuously defended.”
The claims against Frankel were first publicized in an article published last year in South African investigative magazine Noseweek which, based on having received a number of affidavits from many former victims, went so far as to actually label Frankel, in print, and before any court proceedings, a “paedophile” who had left many of his child victims psychologically damaged.
