Beauty queen in marriage fraud

Hinetekawa Ezrah Sayers. Photo / Supplied

A former pageant queen has admitted marrying a man for money to allow him to stay in the country.

Hinetekawa Ezrah Sayers, 21, pleaded guilty in the Rotorua District Court to fraud and immigration charges.

She will be sentenced next month on these as well as burglary and assault charges.

Sayers won the Miss Teen Diamond crown in a Rotorua pageant in 2006.

She has admitted fraudulently obtaining a marriage certificate in her name and a Chinese man's name on July 14 last year.

She also admitted producing the certificate at the Hamilton branch of the New Zealand Immigration Service in August last year, knowing that it was misleading. Charges were laid in November.

The Chinese man has also been charged. He is alleged to have offered Sayers $15,000 to marry him so he could stay in the country.

At an earlier appearance, Sayers admitted assault with intent to injure, receiving stolen goods and assaulting a 12-year-old.

She admitted receiving a stolen television, valued at $2000, between July 27 and September 2 last year.

She also admitted assaulting the 12-year-old girl on September 28 and assaulting a woman with intent to injure on the same day.

Sayers was going through the court process for other charges at the time of these offences.

Days after the assaults she appeared in the Rotorua District Court and admitted choking a teenager until the girl passed out and then bit her in the arm and continued assaulting her until her victim managed to escape and get help. Sayers was serving a community work sentence for another assault and shoplifting when she committed the attack in August.

She is yet to be sentenced on this charge.

Defence lawyer Peter Birks suggested to Judge Phillip Cooper that a psychological report be compiled before Sayers is sentenced, due to a miscarriage she suffered last year.

However, Judge Cooper deemed the report unnecessary.

Sayers is due back before the court on March 24.

- APN