Imanuwela David and Floriana Joseph now face more than a year of waiting to learn their sentences. The Modimolle Regional Court in Limpopo convicted the two of stealing more than $580 000 from President Cyril Ramaphosa’s Phala Phala game farm, and postponed sentencing to the 13th of November 2026.
A third accused, Ndilinasho Joseph, walked away cleared of every charge.
Magistrate Peter Manthata told the court that cellphone records supplied enough evidence to link David and Floriana Joseph to the February 2020 theft, and that the state had proved its case against them beyond reasonable doubt. “Considering the evidence in its totality, the only inference I can draw under the circumstances is that the communication between the accused one and two was about the dollar hidden under the couch at the house in the Phala Phala farm. I therefore, find that the two conspired about the breaking in and a stealing of the money in the said house,” Manthata said.
Meanwhile, the trial exposed in unusual detail how some of the stolen money was spent, and what followed when the relationship tied to that spending fell apart. The court heard that David allegedly used part of the money to buy his girlfriend a vehicle and to help her secure an apartment.
The specifics came out in Manthata’s judgment. David bought the woman a Mercedes Benz C200, a 2016 model worth about R500 000. He also gave her R100 000 as a deposit for an apartment, which she ultimately purchased. When their relationship ended in 2021, David asked for the car back, and she handed it over. The magistrate noted that there was no cross examination on this evidence.
The details gave the court a rare, personal window into the aftermath of the robbery: cash taken from a sofa at the president’s farm resurfacing in a luxury car and a deposit on a home, then a repossession once the couple split.
For observers who have followed the Phala Phala matter since the theft first came to light, the verdict marks a significant moment in a case that has shadowed the presidency. In the courtroom in Modimolle, the focus stayed narrower: two people found to have conspired to break into a house and steal dollars hidden under a couch, a third person acquitted, and a girlfriend who received a car worth half a million rand and then had to return it.
Manthata’s reasoning rested on the communications between the two convicted accused, which he said could point only to one conclusion. The phone records, weighed alongside the rest of the evidence, satisfied him that the pair had planned both the break-in and the theft.
What remains open is the sentence itself, which the court will deliver in November 2026.
Reporting by Vutivi Maluleke.