Blonde fraudster ordered to undergo community service
A blonde fraudster who “tugged on the heartstrings” of victims, selling dogs for profit by posing as an animal rescue company and lying about the pets age and breed has been sentenced.
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A blonde fraudster who “tugged on the heartstrings” of victims, selling dogs for profit by posing as an animal rescue company and lying about the pets age, breed and medical history has been ordered to undergo 200 hours of community service.
Jenna Heaslip, of Ingleburn, was convicted of ten counts of fraud after changing her plea to guilty at Liverpool Local Court yesterday.
The court heard the 25-year-old sourced the canines from local pounds, Gumtree and word of mouth and at stages personally housed up to five dogs as part of her sophisticated operation.
She fleeced close to $5000 across a six-month period from December 2017, with her nine victims sprawled across eastern Australia, located in Newcastle, Orange, Canberra and Melbourne.
On one occasion, Heaslip sold an advertised four-year-old miniature poodle cross to a victim. In reality, the dog was 14-years-old, had only two teeth and was even personally delivered by Heaslip’s partner posing as an Uber driver.
Magistrate Sharon Freund described Heaslip as conducting a “very organised, highly planned” operation and “tugging on the heartstrings” of the victims.
“These are very serious matters and I suspect you really don’t understand how serious they are,” she said.
“Nine people came to the court to complain.
“You caused these families, besides taking the money from them, a lot of anguish and you did those dogs and puppies no favours either.”
Her lawyer said the operation had begun innocently, as a grassroots project to protect dogs from euthanization after she worked as a volunteer for the Animal Welfare League.
In a verbal letter heard by the court, Heaslip said she fell on financial difficulties and “wasn’t running the business in a business way”.
Victims told The Daily Telegraph yesterday how Heaslip would introduce herself as either Hayley, Hannah and Jess.
She would then provide false information about the dog’s breed, age and medical history before she sold the animals to them.
Heaslip said in a statement to The Daily Telegraph she was ashamed of her actions.
“I would like to apologise to everyone involved and to anyone else affected,” she said.
“It was never meant to turn around into something negative. My initial and only focus was finding homes for pets in need.
“Unfortunately being a poorly thought out ‘business’, even though we did successfully rehome many other animals, I didn’t foresee the financial costs that would be involved to myself which did put me in a lot of debt.
“As I tried to overcome them it ended up getting worse with time and ended up with me not able to pay people back that did return unsuitable dogs.
“It was also my responsibility to ensure every piece of information I gave to these individuals was correct, which I did fail to do at these mentioned times.”
She was convicted of an identical fraud offence in Campbelltown Local Court in December 2018.
Heaslip has been placed on a Community Corrections Order for two years and ordered to complete 200 hours of community service.