Serial fraudster duped sex workers out of $23k

A serial fraudster who duped two sex workers out of $23,000 – just weeks after being freed from jail for pulling the same stunt – has been released from prison early.

Marc Christian McClintock was jailed after he was found guilty of defrauding sex workers.

A serial fraudster who duped two sex workers out of $23,000, just weeks after being freed from jail for pulling the same stunt, has won a bid to be released from prison early.

Sunshine Coast man Marc Christian McClintock was jailed for two counts of fraud after he tricked an escort into providing her services for $7000, which he never stumped up, and falsely promised another escort $16,000 for a weekend’s work.

McClintock committed the frauds in 2018, just five weeks after he was released from jail for defrauding a car dealership out of $50,000 and swindling other escorts out of about $30,000.

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In October last year, he was sentenced to two years and four months’ jail by a Maroochydore magistrate who set his parole eligibility for September 8 this year.

Judge David Reid said the escorts McClintock defrauded “suffered the loss of their bargain”.

McClintock appealed his sentence in Brisbane District Court and he was granted immediate parole on June 12.

Judge David Reid ruled the sentence imposed was “manifestly excessive” and shaved 16 months off McClintock’s sentence.

In his reasons published yesterday, Judge Reid said the sentencing magistrate only paid “lip service” to McClintock’s mental health issues and intellectual impairment.

He said the magistrate had “misunderstood the seriousness” of the fraud.

“Escort services were supplied only by the first complainant, but the second did nothing more than meet the appellant before he was arrested,” Judge Reid said.

“Neither complainant actually lost money directly, rather, they suffered the loss of their bargain.”

McClintock, who has borderline personality disorder and Asperger’s syndrome, had a lengthy history of fraudulent activity.

In 2015, he defrauded a commercial retail outlet out of $18,360.

McClintock was also fined $500 after he tried to frame his mother on drug charges.

He later confessed to planting three items of glassware with chemical residue, spirits, glucose and a gas burner in her home, telling police he had done it so he could live by himself.