Frankston Magistrates Court: Jovahn Richards Gibson steals card details of Andrew Bolt’s wife, trafficks cocaine
A Kiwi who bought the details of stolen cards off a Russian website — including those of Andrew Bolt’s wife — has faced the music in court.
South East
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A New Zealand man who bought stolen credit card details from a Russian website — including those of prominent journalist Andrew Bolt’s wife — racked up purchases valued at tens of thousands of dollars has escaped a jail term.
Jovahn Hayse-Mark Richards Gibson, 23,appeared in the Frankston Magistrates Court on Wednesday where he was sentenced to a 12 month community corrections order after pleading guilty to pages of charges relating to fraudulently obtaining property, as well as some of drug trafficking.
Richards Gibson moved to Mornington in 2019 having previously lived in Queensland and Western Australia, before police this year began to investigate him for purchasing stolen credit card information from a Russian website.
The investigation came after Bolt went public with the information his wife Sally Morrell’s credit card information had been stolen and then used.
Mrs Morrell’s card details were used by Richards Gibson to at first make seemingly small purchases such as paying for petrol and a pizza.
But the purchases quickly became more exorbitant with Richards Gibson using the details to pay for flights to Sydney and to the Gold Coast, as well as Airbnb bookings, betting, and medicinal cannabis.
All up Richards Gibson bought the details of more than 40 stolen cards.
Earlier this year Richards Gibson was found passed out in his car in Mornington and when police did a search found 30g of cocaine, along with thousands of dollars in cash.
These findings gave rise to trafficking charges.
Richards Gibson racked up a bill on Mrs Morrell’s card of more than $15,000 which Magistrate Christina Windisch said was concerning as he hadn’t just used the card details to buy items of necessity but he used it to fund holidays and “luxury items”.
“It wasn’t something you were doing as a matter of need,” she said.
Richards Gibson had previously worked in yard maintenance but had quit his job prior to the offending and was unemployed at the time of both the trafficking and card use. The court heard he now worked in scaffolding.
The court heard Richards Gibson had watched videos of a US-based rapper who detailed how to find the card details to learn how to commit the offending.
A conviction was not recorded which defence pushed for so Richards Gibson’s ability to live in Australia was not affected.
He served 53 days in pre-sentence detention but it was not officially included in his sentence.
