Multi-award-winning hip-hop phenomenon Emtee has undertaken to pay back the money he transferred from a family trust account without the consent of his estranged wife Nicole Chinsamy.
This after Chinsamy, who acrimoniously separated from Emtee, successfully obtained an urgent court interdict to stop the recording superstar from depleting their estate and encumbering their assets ahead of their pending divorce.
In the application papers we saw, Chinsamy said Emtee, born Mthembeni Ndevu, formed a trust when they were still in love and appointed her, his friend and lawyer Dumisani Motsamai of Morolong Inc as trustees.
She said as a trustee she had access to the banking notifications on her cellphone.
Chinsamy said on or about May 2 she received notification from FNB that a sum of R599 603 had been transferred from the trust account to a cheque account.
She said Emtee and Motsamai could be the only two people who could have authorised the transaction for such a huge amount.
The notification, she said, took her by surprise because there was never a meeting among the trustees to authorise the transfer.
Chinsamy said Emtee transferred the funds because he wanted to deplete the assets of the trust so that when she
secured a decree of divorce and obtained an order to share the assets, she could walk away with nothing.
The court granted her an order, which enjoined the Manando hitmaker to refrain from depleting their estate or encumbering their assets.
The order, which we have seen, reads in parts: “The first respondent undertakes to return the sum of R599603.
“The first respondent is interdicted from disposing, alienating or encumbering any of the assets or funds of the Mthembeni Ndevu Trust.”
The court also ordered both Chinsamy and Emtee not to utilise the funds for any purpose whatsoever other than for the benefit of the trust beneficiaries.
Emtee and his legal team stated they did not have qualms returning the funds to the trust account, saying that Chinsamy and her lawyer Risiva Khosa should have, instead of going the legal route, contacted them and settle the matter out of court.
“[Our] client is agreeable to the money being returned to the trust on condition that your client gives a reciprocal written undertaking that, until the finalisation of the divorce proceedings and determination on the status of the trust, the money or any portion thereof, will not be utilised for any purpose whatsoever other than for the benefit of the trust beneficiaries.
“Quite honestly we do not understand why it was necessary for you to bring an urgent application on this matter when attorney to attorney you have picked up the phone and inquired from us what was going on here and why,” reads the letter.
Motsamai stated the funds were transferred into their FMB Attorneys Trust account and were safe.
“It remains there to date, intact. The undertaking that you require in terms of your application is in any event in line with the mandate and /purpose for the transfer.
“We therefore have no difficulty giving the written undertaking that you require. We could have given you this on the very same day, had you made contact with ourselves,” read the letter.
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