Crown Casino love scoundrel Jocelyn Zakhour jailed for rorting $800,000 from Tinder dates
A remorseless love-scoundrel fleeced $800,000 from businessmen she “hunted” on Tinder to bankroll her life as a jetsetting Crown Casino Mahogany Room high-roller after she blew $24 million in just three years.
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A Crown Casino love-scoundrel who fleeced almost $800,000 from businessmen she met on Tinder before blowing the lot on baccarat and pokies has been jailed.
Jocelyn Zakhour, 41, was sentenced in the County Court on Tuesday to a minimum two years’ and eight months’ jail after pleading guilty to multiple fraud, blackmail and extortion charges.
Zakhour — a former Mahogany Room Ultra-Black member who had her own “handlers” — was living at the casino when she targeted her two victims via Tinder in early to mid-2018.
The sly seductress told both men she needed cash to invest in a blueberry and illegal tobacco farm in NSW.
Zakhour promised her first victim — a company chief executive — a “300 per cent” return if he pumped cash into the non-existent business.
The victim transferred $728,700 to Zakhour via multiple transactions between June and November 2018.
Zakhour rinsed her victim with a series of lies including a tale about how a truckload of illegal cigarettes had been intercepted by police.
Zakhour told the man she needed cash for her employees and for legal fees.
She also gave the man a fake Rolex to “say she was sincere” and it was not a “scam”.
Zakhour elevated her lies to threats when she told the man he would be “implicated” in the bogus tobacco operation and her employees would “get angry and find him”.
The victim transferred $200,000 but Zakhour demanded another $5000 for a trip to Bali.
Zakhour then amped up her threats for more money.
She told him: “If he (the victim) did not get the money, the employees would find him and his family and harm them”.
“These people have ways,” she said.
The victim told Zakhour he could get no more money so she told him to take it “out of his super”.
“Tell your ex-wife you will kill yourself if she doesn’t give you the money,” Zakhour said.
She said “workers would come to Melbourne and do something to him and his family”.
In late-2018, Zakhour sent the victim 240 emails which contained threats toward the man’s ex-wife, his children and his mother.
The victim reported Zakhour to police in November 2018.
Detectives arranged for the victim to meet Zakhour at Milano’s Tavern in Brighton where they pounced and arrested her.
Zakhour told police she had planned to marry her victim in January and were “going to the Maldives after the Christmas break”.
She admitted making up stories because the victim kept on giving her money, the court heard.
Zakhour told police the victim “knew what type of girl I was”.
She admitted losing all the stolen cash playing Baccarat and pokies at the casino.
Zakhour told police it was “all about the casino”, believing she could “win and pay the money back”.
“The thing that’s killing me is I did nothing with the money, I could have brought the biggest business, I didn’t even buy myself a car, not even property, nothing to show for it,” Zakhour told police.
“I don’t feel sorry for him, how can you be so stupid to believe those stories.”
Zakhour fleeced $61,000 from her second victim, a financial controller, but this offending wasn’t revealed until after she had fronted court in July 2019.
The court heard Zakhour commenced gambling after a relationship broke down.
Zakhour was also held hostage by a man in Syria and her family paid $400,000 for her release, the court was told.
The scoundrel felt guilty her family paid the money so she gambled heavily in a bid to repay them.
Zakhour, who was “enticed” by her Crown Casino handlers to lay down $20,000 bets, was flown to Perth on a private jet paid for by the casino after gambling away $165,000 in a five-day period.
Zakhour, who turned over a staggering $24 million at Crown between 2016 and 2018, said her high-roller lifestyle and the special treatment she received gave her a “sense of power and control”.
Judge Gregory Lyon said Zakhour “callously and ruthlessly” her victims with the “ruse of a romantic relationship”.
“I can only conclude you used the dating apps to seek out and exploit your victims,” Judge Lyon said.
“(Your) ruthless exploitation broke the ability of those men to trust those around them.”
Judge Lyon said Zakhour’s suffered a stroke after the offending.
“(You) ruined his life,” he said.
“The point is, Ms Zakhour, he has lost everything.”
Zakhour, who worked at a soup kitchen following her downfall and a hospital cafe, submitted Crown Casino “fuelled” her gambling addiction.
Zakhour, who sobbed through most of the hearing, was jailed for a maximum four years and six months.
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