Mai TT Freed!

Harare | The High Court has upheld Mai TT’s appeal against her conviction; her conviction has been quashed and set aside.

She has found not guilty.

Mai Titi has been involved in several court cases throughout her career.

In 2020, Mai Titi took one of her colleagues, Kristle Smasher, to the Harare Magistrates’ Court, complaining that she incited her personal assistants, Morepower Masimba Gombe and Patricia Jeke, to suffocate her to death while on a hospital bed.

In October 2020, Mai Titi was ordered to pay $500,000 in defamation damages by the High Court to local home decor expert Memory Muyaka for calling her a prostitute, witch, and cultist on social media.

In November 2022, Mai Titi was sued for a massive US$250 000 by her US-based estranged husband, Tinashe Maphosa, for defamation.

This was after Mai Titi allegedly called her estranged husband “a serial liar, abusive, rapist and criminal who used the Defendant’s name to borrow money.”

In June 2022, Mai TT was convicted for the theft of trust property and sentenced to serve an effective nine months in prison. The sentencing was delivered by Harare Magistrate Mrs Munashe Chibanda.

Mai TT was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment, with six months suspended, on the condition that she does not commit a similar offence within the next five years. Therefore, the effective prison term amounts to six months.

In addition to the conviction for theft of trust property, Mai TT also faced consequences for defaulting on a previous community service sentence. Having failed to complete 105 hours of community service six years ago for a 2015 conviction, she was given an additional three-month prison term for this offence. In total, Mai TT was sentenced to serve nine months in custody.

The fraud case that led to Mai TT’s conviction involved a series of events spanning several transactions. She had borrowed US$10,000 from a loan shark, using various items as collateral. Initially, she presented a hired Mercedes Benz vehicle as surety to the lender, Ms Rachel Mhuka. However, Mai TT later claimed that the Mercedes Benz did not belong to her and substituted it with an Audi Q5.

Subsequently, Mai TT replaced the Audi Q5 with an invalid passport as additional collateral. When Mhuka discovered that the passport was invalid, she confronted Mai TT, who promptly returned the second vehicle. In January of the following year, the police seized the car, acting on a report from Else Event Car Hire, alleging that it had been stolen. The company accused Mai TT of theft of trust property, leading to the subsequent legal proceedings.