'I sentence you to four years' imprisonment." Magistrate Bill Moyses uttered these words and abruptly left the courtroom, leaving former ANC Chief Whip Tony Yengeni puzzled.

"What did he say?" he whispered to his lawyers, advocate Viwe Notshe and attorney Brian Mashile.

They explained the sentencing to the obviously shaken Yengeni, and swiftly moved to file leave to appeal. Yengeni is out on bail of R10 000.

Notshe and Mashile are the third legal team to represent Yengeni since the Sunday Times first exposed how he had received a huge discount on a luxury 4x4 Mercedes-Benz from an arms company. Yengeni bought the ML320 while he was chairman of the parliamentary joint standing committee on defence, which played a key role in deciding the government's arms deal. To clear, his name, Yengeni first turned to Chuene Kwinana Motsatse, who helped him place an advertisement pleading his innocence in several Sunday newspapers.

It cost the Ayanda Mbanga Communications agency some R283 000 to place the advert on Yengeni's behalf. When he did not pay within the agreed time, Mbanga served him and his lawyers with court papers. The fees were subsequently settled.

Later, Motsatse served the forestry company Zama Resources, in which Yengeni had shares, with papers for R311 773.72 for representing the former chief whip.

Yengeni then fell out with the Motsatse legal team over delays in the payment of the advertisement and legal fees.

When charges of corruption and fraud were formally laid against Yengeni, he chose a new legal team, led by Hilton Epstein SC, advocate André Bezuidenhout and attorney Allan Jaftha. But the team withdrew when they were not paid fees amounting to hundreds of thousands of rands. Jaftha could not disclose details of his firm's ties with Yengeni as he said they still had a relationship with him.

The Epstein team entered into lengthy efforts to prevent the state from putting Yengeni on trial, arguing that the charge sheet did not contain sufficient evidence to sustain a corruption conviction.

Attempts to dismiss the trial failed when Commercial Crimes Court magistrate Moyses said he was satisfied the charge sheet disclosed specific offences.

Yengeni was unrelenting in his efforts to escape the long arm of the law. He took the matter to the Pretoria High Court, where his lawyer Epstein said that parliamentary privilege protected the chief whip from criminal prosecution. But Judge Bernard Ngoepe found the submission "quite startling".

Then it was back to the Commercial Crimes Court, where Yengeni's legal team continued wrangling over the contents of the charge sheet. In December last year, Epstein's team withdrew after they were not paid.

Yengeni tried to obtain assistance from the Legal Aid Board - which offers civil legal services at no cost to poor people in South Africa. But he failed.

At the last minute, after the magistrate refused to allow any postponements, he hired Mashile and Notshe who are now fighting to keep him out of jail.

With acknowledgements to Bongiwe Mlangeni and Sunday Times.