Staff Writer
Promoters of the July 2 Winter Warmer concert might as well count their losses after embattled comedienne, Felistas Murata or simply Mai TT was sentenced Thursday to nine months in prison for defaulting on community service and theft of trust property.
Mai TT was part of a line-up of musicians set to heat things up at the Winter Warmer concert scheduled for Harare Gardens on 2 July 2023.
As fate would have it, Mai TT who was being arraigned before the courts was found guilty as charged.
Also on the bill are Mathias Mhere and Alick Macheso and his Orchestra Mberikwazvo group.
The State had to research eight years of records at the National Archives to confirm that Mai TT had defaulted on community service.
She had denied ever being convicted for assault when questioned by a community service officer.
After it was confirmed, she was handed a three-month sentence.
Mai TT’s theft of trust property sentence attracted a 12-month prison sentence, of which six months were suspended.
She still has a pending fraud case and will return to court in August.
This was revealed by prosecutor, Monalisa Mangwendi, when she motivated the court to confirm the warrant of arrest issued against Mai TT in 2015.
“She was sentenced in person and she was aware that she had to perform 105 hours of community service, but she only performed 19 hours and then stopped.
“She made no inquiries of the remaining hours for a continuous eight years and, in this court, she has avoided the question whether she did the community service or not.
“It was her duty to follow up and, in any case, she has shown that she’s dishonest and untrustworthy as she was insisting that she had never been convicted.
“She wasted the court’s time and we had to go through eight years of records to find the record.
“We submit that the default was wilful, she didn’t default today, she defaulted eight years ago and she can’t claim that she forgot that she had community service hours to perform.
“May the warrant be confirmed,” she said.
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