Heartless high-roller duped friends out of $1m to fund pokies addiction
A heartless high-roller who duped friends — including a cancer patient and her cleaning woman — out of $1 million to fund her crippling gambling addiction has been jailed with a judge slamming her greedy crimes.
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A heartless high-roller who duped friends out of $1 million to fund her crippling gambling addiction has been jailed with a judge slamming her greedy crimes.
Maureen Johnston, 68, robbed from anyone she could, targeting friends, a fellow cancer patient and even her cleaning lady.
A Collingwood tragic, Johnston also targeted fellow members with one victim telling police she was wooed over dinner with former player Andrew Krakouer.
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Johnston promised massive returns if her victims invested money in fake schemes she invented including made-up property investment opportunities here and overseas.
One retiree lost his entire life’s savings, $820,000, and is now living on a pension because he can’t afford to self-fund his retirement.
Johnston’s offending was so brazen she would drive one of her victims to an ATM and watch her withdraw cash advances from her credit card on the promise of huge returns.
In total, Johnston tricked her victims into handing over $1,132,500.
If victims ever asked for their money back, Johnston wrote them fake cheques.
She didn’t invest a dollar, instead used it to pay off debts and gamble.
Sources have told the Herald Sun Johnston was a member of a secret Crown Casino club known as the “Black Room”, an invitation-only club where only the casino’s biggest spenders can play pokies.
Little is publicly known about the room but sources say Johnston enjoyed exclusive access to clubs inside the casino, ate and drank for free and took advantage of member only concierge services.
She would also have been required to spend a minimum amount every six months, believed to be more than $60,000, in order to retain access to the club.
Sentencing Johnston, a former Pentridge Prison warden, to a maximum jail term of five and a half years, County Court judge Wendy Wilmoth slammed her as “predatory and exploitative”.
“The summary of the offending makes clear the intentionally dishonest and blatantly opportunistic steps you took to obtain large amounts of money from people whose trust you gained from your interactions and relationships with them,” she said.
“You befriended people, socialised with them, and impressed them with largesse and confident talk of money and the details of potential investments.
“You exploited your cleaning lady and her daughter, you befriended a vulnerable patient in the same hospital where you were being treated, you took money from people knowing their resources were being exhausted, making promises to them knowing they were false.”
Johnson had been threatened with prison in 2005 after being convicted of deception-related offences.
Five years earlier she was placed on a good behaviour bond for more deceptive conduct.
Judge Wilmoth said prison would be onerous for Johnston because of her very poor health, but said there was no alternative because of seriousness of her offending.
“No motivation other than greed can be inferred,” she said.
Johnston must spend at least two years in jail before becoming eligible for parole.