Money mule who unknowingly helped gansters steal family’s $67k house deposit jailed
A Queensland woman who unknowingly helped online criminals steal a family’s hard-earned house deposit in a conveyancing scam has failed to overturn her jail sentence.
A Queensland woman who unknowingly helped online criminals steal a family’s hard-earned house deposit in a conveyancing scam has failed to overturn her three-month jail sentence.
Jessica Kiera Senhenn was paid just over $2000 to open a new ANZ bank account in her name on 13 November 2023.
Seven days later gangsters deposited $67,000 into that account.
It belonged to a family who believed they were paying their house deposit to their conveyancer.
But the scammers hacked the conveyancer’s email and diverted their funds to Ms Senhenn’s account.
Senhenn last month pleaded guilty to recklessly engaging in money laundering between 19 and 25 November 2023. She faced a maximum of a decade behind bars.
The sentencing proceeded on the basis that Senhenn did not know about the conveyancing funds scam.
The court heard the 37-year-old disposed of the rest of the stolen money at AusX Change, with the majority at Gold Diamond Exchange and Value Accountants, and she gave the details to the unnamed gangster.
Details of the scam were revealed in Queensland’s highest court, after Senhenn failed in her bid to claim her jail sentence was excessive.
On November 25 the Court of Appeal refused her application for leave to appeal.
The court heard that Senhenn claimed that she opened the ANZ account because an unknown person she had been speaking to online told her to.
She did not help police identify the criminal or try to recover the stolen $67,000, the decision states.
She withdrew her $2000 cut in cash from ATMs.
When the police searched her unit in January 2024, she gave police her PIN code for her mobile phone but refused a police interview.
On 5 November this year Senhenn was sentenced by Judge Vicki Loury KC in the District Court to one year’s prison, to serve three months actual jail time before release on parole.
At the time of sentencing, she was on a disability support pension and had not worked for about six years as she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and a history of polysubstance abuse.
The Court of Appeal noted that Judge Loury’s sentencing remarks did not suggest Senhenn laundered the dirty cash because she was vulnerable to the influence of someone.
“It seemed that she engaged in the conduct to profit from it, although the profit was of a very small amount. Her serious psychiatric illness played no part in the commission of the offence,” the decision states.
Psychiatrist Phillip Nyst told the court that Senhenn’s mental state was not impaired when she laundered the stolen money.
Justice Debra Mullins, one of three appeal court judges who handed down the unanimous decisions noted that charge of reckless money laundering relates to people who take an unjustifiable risk that the money they deal with is tainted.
Originally published as Money mule who unknowingly helped gansters steal family’s $67k house deposit jailed
