The sunny image of deceased property tycoon Rob Taylor’s philanthropy was clouded when it emerged that the car guards to whom he had given a luxury vehicle are facing fraud charges for selling it.
Media coverage of the multimillionaire’s suspected suicide highlighted his gift of a R2-million Audi R8V10 to six Congolese car guards in Cape Town last year.
The guards sold the vehicle to the Audi Centre in Cape Town in July and Terrence Aupiais, a business colleague of Taylor, laid charges of fraud against them. The six had since fled the country, police said.
The charges claimed that Taylor agreed with the six that the Audi would be used to raise funds for the underprivileged and would not be resold. Police spokesperson Captain Ezra October said the guards sold the vehicle to the Audi Centre for R1,25-million.
Aupiais initiated court action challenging the validity of the sale on the grounds that the car belongs to the Angels Way Trust of which he is the sole trustee. The Audi Centre will oppose this in the Western Cape High Court in May.
“My instructions are to oppose the relief requested,” Andre Pepler, the Audi Centre’s lawyer, said. “Our papers will be filed shortly.” Aupiais claims in court papers that Taylor bought the Audi R8V10 on behalf of the trust.
“Taylor was in Cape Town in the first week of January 2010 on business and to attempt a base jump from Table Mountain,” he says. It was at the lower cable station that Taylor met a number of car guards and discussed their circumstances, according to Aupiais.
“Taylor decided to give the car guards the use of the vehicle.” Aupiais’s papers add: “Taylor explained to them that the vehicle would not be theirs but would remain the property of the trust.
“He explained that they would be entitled to use the vehicle to benefit good causes.” Taylor made headlines in January last year when he was identified as the mystery donor the guards said had given them the new Audi.
The guards at first used the car to start collecting money for charity, having cut a slot in the Audi’s bonnet into which donations could be dropped. The Audi Centre has replaced the vehicle’s bonnet but cannot sell the vehicle until the matter is settled in court.
Taylor’s public image before the Audi saga centred on his colourful body tattoos, particularly of angels, and his love of sky-diving and fast cars. He made news in 2006 when he was fined R15 000 for driving his Lamborghini Diablo at 207km/h on the N3 near Camperdown in KwaZulu-Natal.
Former staff members in Howick described the businessman as “media shy” and “wonderfully generous”. But a former business associate, who asked not to be named, told the Mail & Guardian Taylor had been a difficult man who had given gifts “to control people”.
His body was found on Table Mountain on Sunday evening and his death remains a mystery. Kevin Tromp, a manager of Wilderness Search and Rescue, said the organisation received a report that a man had leapt off one of the viewing sites on the top of Table Mountain.
“Based on that information, we flew out to investigate and found his body on the Africa ledge,” said Tromp. “He had fallen around 100m.”