Kristella Marios to contest accusation she stole jiu-jitsu gear from Golden Point laundromat

A Ballarat gym-goer intends to challenge accusations she stole martial arts uniforms from a local laundromat.

Kristella Marios appeared in Ballarat Magistrates' Court on July 24, 2023. Photo: Facebook

A Ballarat gym-goer who says she accidentally took martial arts uniforms from a laundromat and handed them to a friend will fight a theft charge after it took nearly four weeks for most of the items to be returned.

Kristella Marios appeared in Ballarat Magistrates’ Court on Monday.

The court heard on the evening of May 24 last year, Ms Marios attended a Golden Point laundromat to wash clothes for a friend.

She allegeldy went through a laundry basket belonging to someone else, took items including two Brazilian jiu-jitsu sets worth $300 each, folded them, and placed them into the multiple baskets she was using.

Ms Marios allegedly packed the clothes in her vehicle and left.

The owner of the items returned and noticed the missing clothing.

Ms Marios and the man encountered each other on the street, and in ensuing days they began speaking to each other by text messages.

The court heard Ms Marios told the man she had taken the items by mistake, thinking they belonged to her friend’s husband, who practised MMA.

Over nine days, the man asked several times for the clothes to be returned.

Ms Marios was sometimes tardy in replying and said her friend was away.

Eventually she told the man to leave her alone.

It was 24 days after the alleged theft that Ms Marios returned a washing basket with most of the allegedly stolen items to the laundromat.

However, some “expensive items” were said to have remained missing, the court heard.

When Ms Marios spoke with police, she said despite “quite a difference in body size” between the clothes and her friend’s husband, she thought they were his.

Asked about the delay in returning the items, she said the clothes had been at her friend’s house, whose mind the matter “didn’t cross” because she had “so much going on” and “must have just forgotten about it”.

Ms Marios said she “got shitty” at the man because he was “being a certain way”.

“Basically it slipped my mind quite a few times and then he pissed me off so I thought, ‘Well, he can wait,” the court heard she told police.

The accused appeared in court on Monday expressing some qualms with the prosecution's summary of events.

She said the clothes had been right next to her friend’s in the laundromat and her own mind had been “just all over the place”.

Ms Marios said her friends “backed away” from her once she asked them for a statement about the matter and she felt somewhat as if she was taking the fall for them.

“I can’t state what happened once they [the clothes] were in their possession,” she said.

Proving Ms Marios committed the alleged theft requires the prosecution to show she took the items with the intention to keep them away from their owners for good.

The matter was booked in for a full-day hearing, during which three civilian witnesses and a police informant may be called, in September.