Jail inevitable, judge tells mother-of-three fraudster

A benefit fraudster's repayment efforts would take 116 years, a judge noted when the woman pleaded guilty to 18 charges in the Christchurch District Court yesterday.

Judge Graeme Noble also warned Maria Lulia Suitupe Osi that prison would inevitably interrupt her repayment plans when she is sentenced next month for the frauds totalling $115,867.

Ministry of Social Development prosecutor Grant Fletcher told the court that Osi used two IRD numbers and four names while she collected wages from six jobs during her time on the benefit.

The mother-of-three had no assets and was paying the money back to the department at $20 a week through deductions from her benefit.

Defence counsel Leuatea Iosefa said the three children, aged 19, 16, and eight, would be placed with family in Auckland while she was in prison.

Judge Noble remanded her on bail for sentencing on August 9 on seven charges of wilfully omitting to tell the department of a change in her circumstances concerning her marriage and employment, and 11 charges of fraudulently or dishonestly using a document.

He was granting bail so she could organise her affairs because jail was inevitable, he said.

Judge Noble said her dishonesty about her relationship with her husband, and her employment situation was a "very serious falsity" lasting 10 years.

"The result is that there is $116,000 of our money down the tube and no prospects of ever recovering it."

Mr Fletcher said the offending began in 1995 when Osi applied for a non-beneficiary accommodation supplement without saying that she had already reconciled with her husband who had recently been released from prison.

She received an accommodation supplement, special needs grant, sickness benefit, and domestic purposes benefit.

Mr Iosefa said her husband had been jailed for serious assaults and breaches of a protection order.

Osi told the department that she had not told them about the husband returning because "he was there on and off".

- NZPA