Brenan Leonard Rodgers jailed for more than three years for fraud and deceit offences

A con artist who used sophisticated trickery and old-fashioned guile to take off with a BMW and jewellery was brought down by a hotel swipe card.

A con artist who duped staff out of thousands of dollars in jewellery and a luxury car through his “guile” – only to be caught in the car wearing his ill-gotten bling – has been jailed for more than three years.

Brenan Leonard Rodgers, 50, pleaded guilty to dishonestly dealing with documents and deceiving another to benefit himself over two incidents in January last year.

On Wednesday, in the District Court, Judge Geraldine Davison said Rodgers had the means and techniques to significantly deceive others.

On January 30, 2020, Rodgers went to a jewellers near the Adelaide Airport and selected a gold watch, gold bracelet and a diamond ring.

He also said he wanted to purchase two care plans for the jewellery. All up Rodgers should have paid more than $3300 for the haul.

“You said you would pay for the goods using a mobile application,” Judge Davison said.

“You showed the sales assistant an email showing the payment had been made.

“You were then allowed to leave the store with the jewellery.”

An hour later the store realised the payment had not come through. One of the staff members had noted that Rodgers had a swipe card for a nearby hotel.

A day later he was found by police in a BMW wearing the stolen jewellery. He was arrested and has been in custody since.

An investigation found that Rodgers had also lied on a document days before when he tried to swap the BMW for a family sedan at a southern suburbs car dealership.

Rodgers lied on the document and said he had spent $122,000 on the BMW and had bought it three weeks before.

“In fact the vehicle was one you had acquired from a car dealership in Victoria in exchange for a $500 payment on January 19, 2020,” she said.

Rodgers attended at the salesroom in South Bank, Melbourne on January 7 and told staff he was “getting a divorce and required an expensive car to irritate his wife”.

He settled on a $275,000 model and signed a contract that would give him a loan car once he transferred $90,000.

He showed staff a screen shot showing the transfer of funds.

“When you arrived the car was ready but the money had not yet reached their bank account,” she said.

“A decision was made to lend the car to you on the basis of your apparent history with the company.

“That showed you had purchased five cars from them, but later checks showed they had all been cancelled.”

Over the next few days the money had still not come through and Rodgers sent in a screen shot of his bank account showing he had more than $6m.

Judge Davison said Rodgers had a long history of deception and fraud and had showed the “guile” needed to deceive people.

Rodgers was sentenced top three years, nine months and 11 days in prison with two years and one month non-parole.