Canterbury share investor Anita Eliezer jailed for ripping off friends to the tune of millions
Friends ripped off by a disgraced Canterbury share investor, who used the embezzled millions to pay for a lavish lifestyle and support her husband’s Bollywood movie, have spoken of being left “breathless” by her deception.
Inner East
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A disgraced share investor who promised to invest millions of dollars of her friends’ cash but instead used it to fund her filmmaker husband’s Bollywood movie project and a lavish lifestyle has been sentenced to jail.
Anita Eliezer, 60, of Canterbury, was jailed for five years and eight months at the County Court today after pleading guilty last week to defrauding five friends out of a total of $6.41 million.
Last week, the court heard the Eliezers lived a life characterised by luxury cars, designer handbags, a plush rental home in Melbourne’s ritzy inner east and expensive overseas holidays.
It was a life the court heard the couple couldn’t afford.
Judge Liz Gaynor told the court today much of the money was spent on the Eliezers’ credit card debts and rent.
A victim impact statement read to the court by prosecutor Ariadne French last week detailed one victim’s suspicion that much of the ill-gotten cash was sunk into Christie Eliezer’s movie and music endeavours, which included a Bollywood film.
Mr Eliezer is a former music commentator for The Age and writes for The Music Network.
Progress Leader is not suggesting Mr Eliezer has broken the law.
Outside court, victims Ian and Heather Maurer, both former long-term friends of the Eliezers, said they were frequently blown away by the Eliezers’ lavish spending.
Mr Maurer said they now knew the Eliezers enviable lifestyle was paid for using other people’s money and he said the betrayal was “breath taking”.
“The problem was they were living a fantastic life on other people’s hard work,” Mr Maurer said outside court.
“The complete betrayal of trust is just enormous.
“It just completely washes right through you. It virtually leaves you breathless.”
Last week, the court heard Eliezer manipulated the Maurers after their son’s death, convincing them to hand inheritance money for her to invest.
The couple had planned to use the money to build a new family home in their son’s memory and Eliezer told them she would capitalise on it and give it back as her way of helping them to commemorate their son.
Instead the court heard she kept the cash for herself and the Maurers never received a cent of the $575,000 they gave her. The couple were left with mounting debts that forced them to sell their family home.
Judge Liz Ganynor told the court today Eliezer’s lies and actions were “callous”, “ruthless” and “predatory”.
She said Eliezer preyed on people for her own gain and her victims were all friends she’d known for decades who were predisposed to trust her.
All were conned into handing over their savings to Eliezer to invest on their behalf, with the understanding she would capitalise on it and give it back.
Instead her victims only got partial payments or nothing back at all.
And Judge Gaynor said the cycle of offending meant Eliezer often “robbed Peter to pay Paul” by using one victim’s money to make part payments to another victim.
“The effect of this offending has been horrendous,” Judge Gaynor said.
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“I regard the gravity of your offending and the moral culpability of your offending as high.
“For years you practised an elaborate scheme of deception on people that were able to be manipulated by you because of their relationship to you.”
Appearing from the dock, Eliezer, who is already serving a four-year jail term for similar offending, was told she must serve at least three years and eight months of her sentence before becoming eligible for parole.