South Australia’s Casanova conmen and Romeo robbers caught out and off to jail
These are the lousy Lotharios who talk their way into the lives of SA women only to dump them and leave them penniless — and some are out of jail and may be looking for their next victim.
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They are the smooth-talking charmers who weave their way into the lives of women only to dump them and leave them penniless.
Last week Paul Carter, 52-year-old tradie dad from Melbourne’s outer northern suburbs made national headlines as a Lothario liar, dudding a long list of women, businesses and a charity through his deceits.
Carter — aka Paul Cristallo — is accused of posing as a multi-millionaire developer, who drove Maseratis and even gifted supercars to besotted partners, lured in with fake online dating profiles.
But he’s one of many so-called Casanova conmen. Here is a rogues gallery of those who went to jail for their crimes — but might now be out looking for their next unlucky victim to fleece.
MATTHEW CHARLES TANNER
Tanner is a serial fraudster who regaled the residents of the tiny Flinders Ranges town of Melrose claiming links to Heath Ledger, Robert De Niro and Keith Urban, and living the high life on the money of women he dumped.
Tanner also pretended to be a French-speaking sous chef, pilot, diver, dealer of grange hermitage wine and a champion cricketer, better than Adam Gilchrist. Tanner told tales of how his parents were millionaires and owned a cattle station in WA where he flew film star De Niro around in the family helicopter.
For the 200 people of the historic town, built in the shadow of majestic Mt Remarkable, his story seemed nothing short of unbelievable — and so it proved.
But not before barmaid Sonya Fuller fell for his charms and moved him in rent-free. She was working part-time at the Mt Remarkable Hotel bar when Tanner, calling himself James Hall, walked in.
New in town, good-looking, with boyish charm, he had been taken on as chef at the town’s other hotel, the North Star. That was until they quickly discovered he couldn’t cook.
Ultimately he left Ms Fuller and two of her friends standing at an airport while he vanished to Victoria with $5500 of their money handed over for planned flights to meet his family in Broome.
“We were together for just over 12 months and I thought we were in love,’’ Ms Fuller said. “When I look back on it I wonder whether any of it was real.”
Police caught up with Tanner in Broome and arrested the then 40-year-old at a luxury resort.
They discovered a trail of aliases and scams running across four states. Tanner faced trial in Port Pirie Magistrate’s court in April 2009 on a string of fraud-related charges dating back to 1990.
He pleaded guilty to seven counts of deception and dishonesty and was sentenced to nine months’ jail, on top of five months already spent in custody. Told he must compensate two victims, Magistrate Stefan Metanomski said Tanner’s offences were “premeditated, calculated and performed without conscience”.
IVAN ZONEFF
One of the state’s worst con artists, Zoneff was described in court as a “creative, methodical, duplicitous and merciless charlatan’’.
The 62-year-old, pictured above in 1990, was known by a string of aliases, including Simon Voss, and has a long criminal history of defrauding vulnerable and naive women.
A hopeless addicted gambler who has lost millions on the punt, mainly through the Adelaide Casino and SA TAB, Zoneff was a self-employed builder and married father of two young children living at Toorak Gardens, when first convicted in 1987.
The then 30-year-old, who was educated in Switzerland where he studied business administration, pleaded guilty before a Supreme Court jury to 55 charges of forgery, false pretences and other crimes of dishonesty involving more than $800,000 and was sentenced to 14 years’ jail. The sentence was later reduced by four years. Not long after being set free in the mid-1990s Zoneff was soon duping, while romancing, two woman out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In 2000, Joan Baseby from Hawthorn broke down in court explaining how she lost more than $600,000 to an opal mining scam. During shocking testimony she described herself as “a murder victim who hasn’t died’’.
The 68-year-old said Zoneff stripped her of her assets, integrity and dignity. Left destitute she faced becoming a “bag lady”.
Former neighbour and fellow divorcee Jane Alyce-Humphreys, then 58, told how Zoneff preyed on her good will and had “effectively raped” her “socially, economically and emotionally.”
“This man broke my fundamental trust of people,’’ the woman who lost her home and had to live in a women’s shelter, said.
A jury found Zoneff guilty on 39 counts of false pretences. Sentencing him to seven years’ jail, Justice Bruce Lander, now the ICAC chief, was damning in his judgment.
“You ruined these women to feed a voracious gambling habit and to live a life of extravagance,’’ he said.
CHRISTOPHER DENNIS SMITH
This former police cadet was jailed for leaving a trail of broken hearts and empty wallets across Australia.
One of Smith’s many South Australian victims, known only as Sylvia, contacted women via the internet to warn them about the smooth-talking shyster.
Police hunted the conman across three states — SA, NSW and Victoria — after he wooed vulnerable women he met at hotels or through personal ads before he disappeared with cash, cars and electrical goods.
Smith, also known as Chris Anderson, Paul Smith and Chris Abernathy, left behind at least six children to several women and countless broken promises, leaving lives in tatters. He spent a decade running from the law before being arrested in Melbourne in 2000 when police found a car with stolen number plates in his driveway. Three former girlfriends were in court to hear a magistrate jail him for “despicable’’ thefts. He pleaded guilty to 21 charges.
“You have been very cunning and duped a number of people for a long time,’’ Magistrate Brian Clifford told him.
He sentenced Smith to three years’ jail, with a two-year minimum, including one month’s jail on Commonwealth charges of making and possessing a false Australian Federal Police badge. Smith, 41 at the time, mouthed the words “I’m sorry’’ to his victims as he was led from Dandenong Magistrates’ Court in Melbourne.
“He can’t pay for the emotional damage he has done but he can pay for the criminal damage,’’ ex-girlfriend Kristen Wood said outside court.
DAVID ROBIN DOUGLAS
Douglas is one of Australia’s most audacious conmen who in 2006 found himself in a jail cell at Port Lincoln following a dramatic sea chase.
The then 41-year-old brazen huckster, using the name Dave Golden, had been hunted across Australia by police over the fraudulent sale of a yacht that didn’t exist.
His arrest came as a relief to Melbourne woman Linda Holmes who claimed he not only conned her out of her life savings but into a sham marriage.
He told her he owned a luxury resort and several large cattle properties before marrying her just weeks after they met.
The Darwin wedding ceremony turned out to be fake — attended by fake relatives and with a phony celebrant.
At the time of conning his “wife” out of $100,000 another Melbourne woman, Linda Taylor, was engaged to Douglas, the father of two of her children. He even gave both women the same engagement ring.
Douglas was nabbed after taking off with a South Australian man’s $75,000 yacht while the man was at his mother’s funeral. Supposed to be taking the yacht from the Wirrina Cove resort via Glenelg to a Port Adelaide marina to undergo a refit, Golden failed to show up and the owner reported the yacht missing, presumed stolen.
It was spotted near Coffin Bay, 300km west of Adelaide, and police gave chase using a helicopter, plane and police launch. Douglas had ingratiated himself at Wirrina Cove, posing as a prominent developer and gaining people’s confidence over two months. In a colourful life he had previously posed as an undercover cop, treasure hunter and bikie.
Ms Holmes went into hiding in fear when Douglas was freed unexpectedly by a Queensland judge in 2009, who determined he had already served enough time.
Douglas, having legally changed his name to O’Cean, was jailed again in 2013 for pretending to be an LA-based plastic surgeon before injecting bikini-clad strippers with fake Botox at a Surfers Paradise party in Queensland.
For $500 each, he injected four partygoers in the face, buttocks, breasts, stomach and legs. Partygoers became suspicious when they tasted the “Botox” liquid and discovered it was salt water. O’Cean fled and was later arrested in Fremantle by WA police.
WADARI WIRIYANJARA
Wiriyanjara claimed to be a “super soldier”, the son of an Aboriginal magic man, and a globetrotting spy who landed a helicopter on the steps of the High Court and knocked back a contract to kill Osama bin Laden. But in truth, he is Dallas Gwilliam, now 46, and a compulsive liar who scammed his female victims out of more than $1 million.
Amanda Elphick met him in Adelaide in 2003 when she moved into a house he was sharing with her friend.
“When I met Dallas, he was incredibly caring,” she said.
“He wasn’t my type — he had terrible teeth, for a start. But he latched on to me, always making sure I was OK.”
When Elphick’s brother Craig died and left her $75,000 Dallas’ eyes lit up. Slowly but surely, he won her over claiming they were “soulmates”.
Elphick says the man she trusted contrived an elaborate scam where she would pay money for protection against her former partner, a Sydney gangster, who had supposedly put a $25,000 contract on her head. When the 75 grand ran out — so did Gwilliam. As it turned out Elphick was lucky.
Another victim, film director Melanie Hogan, had a child with Gwilliam and invited him on a speaking tour to promote her documentary on indigenous Australians believing he was the relative of an Aboriginal man in her film. She gave him $296,000 after claiming he needed to pay off the Russian mafia for protection from Australian military officials trying to kill him for uncovering a drug syndicate operating in the army.
All up she handed over $889,000.
Most of the money went on five star resorts, casinos, luxury cars, motorbikes and speedboats. Found guilty of 30 counts of deception, Gwilliam was sentenced to a maximum eight years in a NSW court in 2013.