`Community needs protection from this offender’: Judge sentences a Central Coast con woman to jail
One of two con-women who fleeced elderly men out of their life savings will spend her first night behind bars after being sentenced to a minimum of three years and nine months jail.
One of two con-women who fleeced elderly men out of their life savings will spend her first night behind bars after being sentenced to a minimum of three years and nine months jail.
Aruna Devi Gould and her partner of 13 years Maria Anne Virgili faced a sentencing hearing at Gosford District Court today after pleading guilty to ripping off two elderly men they had befriended to the tune of $51,900.
But gambling records tendered in court reveal the pair could have stung other unwitting victims, who have been too embarrassed or comprehensively duped to come forward, with Gould racking up more than $300,000 in losses on the pokies at clubs at Doyalson and Wyong.
The court heard Gould was on a pension receiving about $800 a fortnight at the time.
Police alleged in previous court appearances there were up to four possible victims, with amounts totalling in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But after two separate trials failed to go ahead, for various reason, since their arrest in 2015 the pair agreed to plead guilty to two counts each of obtaining financial advantage by deception pertaining to money stolen over a period of several months from two victims.
An agreed set of facts revealed 48-year-old Gould approached Robert Sullivan, 77, at Club Tuggerah in 2014 and later invited him for lunch.
She later rang him and gave him a sob story about how she needed $8,000 to flee a partner and promised to repay him $400 a fortnight.
She and Virgili then invited him on a holiday to Fiji where they spent a week at Smugglers Cove Resort and got him to pay all their expenses of more than $12,000.
The court heard over a series of stories of hardship, including one in which Gould said Virgili had cancer and needed an operation, the pair managed to take Mr Sullivan for at least $33,400 between March 2014 and June 2015.
Judge David Wilson said Gould had been on parole at the time of her offending for defrauding another man, Henry Wall, of $18,500, in almost identical circumstances between March and October 2014.
Mr Wall, now deceased, was 93 at the time and told his daughter on his deathbed he had been giving money to a woman of Indian decent with distinctive white skin pigmentation he had only ever known as “Sylvia Black”.
Wiping away tears Gould said nothing as Judge Wilson describer her lack of remorse, in which she claimed to be the victim, as “abhorrent” and “offensive”.
He found she was “not of good character,” had been on government benefits since she arrived in Australia many years ago and the “prospects of rehabilitation virtually non-existent or low at best”.
“There is no doubt the community needs protection from this offender, particularly older, vulnerable people,” he said.
He sentenced her to a maximum penalty of five years jail with a non-parole period of three years and nine months commencing today.
Until then she had been on bail.
The court heard she had pleaded guilty to one count of common assault last year after she approached an 82-year-old man and demanded money.
When he refused she kicked him in the groin. She will be sentenced on that matter next month.
Her co-accused partner Virgili will be sentenced in April after the court heard her defence was still seeking medical and psychiatric reports. She was granted bail.
Outside court Mr Sullivan and the family of Mr Wall, including his daughter Cheryl Lindeman, said they were “relieved” Gould was finally behind bars.
“It means a vindication, she hasn’t gotten away with it and she’s going to serve time and she won’t be doing this to anyone else,” Mrs Linderman said.
“We’re very satisfied.”
Mr Sullivan however, said it was a “bit of a kick in the pants” to him because he felt she deserved a longer sentence.
Asked if he thought they were his friends Mr Sullivan replied: “the only friend they know is m-o-n-e-y”.
Elderly man dies five days after car rollover
A man, 77, has died in hospital five days after the car he was travelling in hit an embankment and rolled on the Old Pacific Highway. Here’s what we know.
Jealous ice addict jailed for horrifying hammer attack
An ice addict was “motivated by jealousy” when she bludgeoned her friend with a hammer so hard that parts of her brain were spilt out on the floor, leaving the victim permanently in a wheelchair.