Grant appeared in the Rotorua District Court today on representative charges of 'Dishonestly using documents' and 'Obtaining by deception' and individual charges of 'Creating a forged document' and 'Using a forged document'.
The Serious Fraud Office alleges that the defendant used her position in several organisations to fraudulently obtain funding from the tertiary education provider Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi and the Tertiary Education Commission.
Donna Mariana Grant, 60, has a background in education, particularly in Maori performing arts in and around the Te Arawa region.
Grant held numerous prominent positions with charitable organisations and in the education sector generally between 2010 and 2014. She was a trustee of the Te Arawa Kapa Charitable Trust, a member of the board of trustees for the New Zealand Warriors Foundation, as well as the executive director of a private training establishment, Manaakitanga Aotearoa Trust.
The charges before the Court relate to Grant involvement with these organisations and specifically the fraudulent obtaining of funding for them.
Nearly 100 Warriors players and staff "completed" an 18-week course in just one day in 2013, when Grant was Sir Owen Glenn's representative on the Warriors board.
Warriors chief executive Wayne Scurrah told the New Zealand Herald in 2014 it was "disappointing to be caught up in all of this" but the club did not know the course was supposed to be 18 weeks long, not one day.
