Goel\u2019s offending included awarding a contract to build a $7 million wastewater treatment plant at Franz Josef to Techno Economic Services NZ, a company run by a cake decorator with no experience in engineering or water treatment plants.<\/p>\n
Chang said these \u201ccritical\u201d infrastructure projects had implications for the health and wellbeing of the West Coast community.<\/p>\n
While Goel was supposed to file his appeal within 20 working days of sentencing, he waited more than two years \u2013 filing it in May 2024, five weeks after he was released on parole.<\/p>\n
In his affidavit supporting his application for leave to appeal, he said directly following his conviction he and his family \u201cwere emotionally broken, shaken, shocked and distressed\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said he gave his lawyer instructions to file an appeal at the time, but that did not happen due to financial issues, Goel\u2019s limited access to information in prison, and his understanding that an appeal would impede his chances of being granted parole.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reasons for Mr Goel\u2019s very long delay in filing a notice of appeal are far from persuasive. He appears to have deliberately waited to gain parole before filing his notice of appeal. That tactical decision essentially involved Mr Goel choosing not to file his notice of appeal in a timely manner until after he was granted parole,\u201d said the Court of Appeal decision, released this month.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat Mr Goel is effectively asking this court to do is find that the time limit imposed by Parliament should yield to his view that filing a notice of appeal within time would impact on his application for parole.\u201d<\/p>\n
In deciding whether leave to appeal out of time should be granted, the court first assessed his grounds of appeal, but found they were \u201cso devoid of merit\u201d there was no reason to let the application proceed.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if we were to grant the extension of time, Mr Goel\u2019s appeal against conviction would be dismissed,\u201d the decision said.<\/p>\n
His grounds included that no jury could safely find him guilty based on the evidence given, that hearsay evidence was wrongly admitted, the trial judge did not properly direct the jury about propensity evidence, and that the judge should have given a specific warning to the jury about how to handle evidence alleging Goel had lied to Immigration NZ.<\/p>\n
But the court rejected all of these points, saying although the case was circumstantial, the evidence was strong. The decision also found the disputed evidence was not hearsay, and that the judge had adequately warned the jury on propensity evidence and lie allegations.<\/p>\n
The decision also noted the first ground of appeal about whether the verdicts were reasonable had already been dealt with in court three times before, with applications to dismiss the charges prior to and during the trial.<\/p>\n
The court dismissed the application to appeal out of time.<\/p>\n
Melissa Nightingale is a Wellington-based reporter who covers crime, justice, and news in the capital. She joined the Herald in 2016 and has worked as a journalist for 12 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Goel\u2019s offending included awarding a contract to build a $7 million wastewater treatment plant at Franz Josef to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,6375,1343,1558,126848,6932,9525,31578,51179,94575,5205,62240,36192,2174,126847,18613,12938,2740,42,30538,4507,12514,2190,44191,93,43,11552,47839,30308,24352,4758,61,40,38,41,39,10510],"class_list":["post-207925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-after","tag-appeal","tag-associates","tag-been","tag-bribes","tag-cash","tag-caught","tag-chances","tag-contracts","tag-corrupt","tag-council","tag-declined","tag-deliberately","tag-exchange","tag-excouncil","tag-file","tag-filed","tag-former","tag-headlines","tag-helping","tag-late","tag-leave","tag-long","tag-lucrative","tag-manager","tag-news","tag-notice","tag-parole","tag-protect","tag-secure","tag-taking","tag-to","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-waiting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}