Australian Army member Mary Smithers sentenced over ‘hardcore’ sex videos
A “disturbing relationship of cuckoldry, control and manipulation” led a young army member to covertly film sex videos and share them with a superior.
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An army instructor engineered what prosecutors have dubbed “a disturbing relationship of cuckoldry, control and manipulation” with a young recruit, who was “groomed” into sending him covert recordings of herself having “hardcore” sex with fellow members of the military.
Corporal Matthew Wielozynski “didn’t give two hoots” about Mary Smithers as he played the role of “puppetmaster”, Defence Force magistrate Michael Cowen KC said on Monday.
Major General Cowen made that comment in the Defence Force Magistrates Court as he sentenced Smithers, 24, to a wholly suspended term of six months in military detention.
For her role in the enterprise, Smithers was also demoted from the rank of corporal to private soldier.
The court heard Smithers had been an 18-year-old recruit when she “fell under the spell” of the much older Wielozynski at the Kapooka training base, near Wagga Wagga, in 2018.
Major General Cowen said the pair began a sexual relationship marked by “coercive control” on the part of Wielozynski, a man 10 years her senior.
Wielozynski instructed Smithers on how to set up a Tinder profile with which to “lure” their victims, who were all members of the Australian Defence Force.
Over a protracted period of time, Smithers used her phone and a GoPro to record herself having what prosecutors described as “hardcore” sex with seven men.
None of them consented to Smithers subsequently sharing intimate images with Wielozynski, which she did using either Snapchat or a shared drive.
While two had agreed to be filmed, the others did not even realise they were being videoed.
The offending was discovered in 2021, when Major General Cowen said Wielozynski “maliciously” reported Smithers to the military police after the pair’s relationship soured.
Wielozynski became “the author of his own misfortune” by doing so, Major General Cowen observed, given the pair’s text messages revealed “he had put her up to” her wrongdoing.
The court heard Wielozynski had pleaded guilty to unspecified charges and was due to be sentenced in August.
Smithers, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to charges of capturing visual data in an invasion of privacy and non-consensual distribution of intimate images.
Three of the victims provided statements that were read to the court at her sentencing on Monday, with one writing that he felt nervous about intimate images turning up online.
Another described the invasion of his privacy as “an emotional and psychological assault”, which had done “irreparable damage”.
The third wrote of feeling “deeply betrayed and traumatised” by the invasion of his privacy, the effects of which included recurring nightmares.
Smithers also addressed the impact of her actions, reading to the court a letter of apology in which she described being “deeply ashamed” and “devastated”.
She told the court she could not be a more different person to the vulnerable and “malleable” teenager who “threw away” her own moral compass in an attempt to please Wielozynski.
Prosecutors agreed with Smithers’ defending officers that she should not be jailed or dismissed from the Defence Force, given the context of her relationship with Wielozynski.
One defending officer, Major Michelle Barnes, branded Wielozynski’s conduct “grooming”.
In sentencing, Major General Cowen described more than 700 pages of text messages between Wielozynski and Smithers as “replete with evidence of emotional manipulation”.
The magistrate said instructors in Wielozynski’s position were “like God” to young recruits such as Smithers, whose immaturity had been exploited.
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