Rosa Rossi becomes Victoria’s first female officer sentenced to jail
During a 10-month crime spree former police sergeant Rosa Rossi used her position to deceptively obtain homes all across Victoria. Now the disgraced cop will be locked up behind bars with crims she once worked to catch. So how did she pull off the brazen crimes?
Police & Courts
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A former sergeant has become the first female police officer to be jailed in Victoria after fraudulently taking control of several strangers’ homes across the state in a “preposterous” bid to grow her property portfolio.
Rosa Rossi, 57, was on Wednesday jailed for at least two years and four months, after admitting to using her badge and the Victoria Police database to find six vacant properties before falsely claiming ownership of the rural and city homes.
Rossi hired locksmiths to change the locks of the houses – some of which were still filled with their true owners prized personal possessions – and brazenly advertised for tenants on Gumtree during her 10 month crime spree.
During a “busy period of acquisition”, Rossi deceptively obtained homes in Willaura, Brooklyn, Malvern and Chadstone between April 2016 and February 2017.
The now convicted con woman’s offending escalated from targeting modest rural properties to suburban homes worth more than $900,000 and even performed maintenance and gardening works.
On one occasion, victims of Rossi’s scam were alerted by their neighbours there were people living in their house and they returned to find the locks had been changed.
In earlier pre-sentence hearings, Rossi had claimed she was trying to legally acquire the properties under “adverse possession”, which allows someone to obtain ownership if they can prove they’ve possessed it exclusively for at least 15 years.
County Court Judge Martine Marich rejected this suggestion as “preposterous”.
Once a commended senior policewoman, Rossi’s fall from grace was “dramatic, profound, public and gravely embarrassing,” Judge Marich said.
The loss to her victims was not measured in financial terms, but in the gross breach of privacy and challenged the very heart of property ownership, the court heard.
In sentencing her to a maximum of four-and-a-half years, Judge Marich said Rossi had demonstrated a willingness to lie and misuse her position as a police officer and thereby “cloak your criminal conduct in the guise of legitimate action”.
“You told them you were a police officer so they could trust you,” Judge Marich said.
The court heard Rossi joined Victoria Police in 1994 and rose to the rank of sergeant after a childhood marred with abuse and fear.
Rossi was forced to resign after she was charged in late 2018 and has since been working as a vegetable grower in regional Victoria.
Rossi pleaded guilty to five counts of obtaining property by deception, two counts of perjury and one count of unauthorised access to police information.