Two lawyers were on Friday arraigned before a Kisii court over claims of defrauding the Sony Sugar Company Sh500,000 using fake documents.
Kerario Marwa and Samuel Odingo were arraigned before Chief Magistrate Ezekiel Obina to face charges of allegedly committing the crime between 2015 and 2018.
Odingo was charged with knowingly uttering a forged plaintiff statement at the Migori Law Courts on October 6, 2015, before verifying an affidavit case with non-existent names in May 2018, before the same court.
Kerario was also charged with forging and uttering false documents between November 2, 2015, and June 21, 2018, while purportedly representing Sony Sugar farmers.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) has established that some lawyers have been altering contracts of unsuspecting farmers and using them to file cases at the Kehancha, Kisii, Rongo, Homa Bay and Migori courts.
This led to the arrest of the two on Wednesday, on suspicion that they are part of the suspected group.
According to Sony Sugar Managing Director Bernard Otieno, the company was aware of such cases and has since formed a special team to probe the suspicious suits against the factory.
"This is after we established that the farmers’ documents had been forged and that they were not aware of the lawsuits,” he told the Standard.
The two denied the charges and were released on Sh50,000 cash bail or a Sh100,000 bond with a surety of a similar amount, with the next hearing set for September 12.