An Auckland woman nicknamed the "Queen of Greed" for duping friends out of millions of dollars in a Nigerian banking scam has appealed against her conviction for forgery at the country's highest court.
Patricia Walsh, 65, was sentenced to seven years in prison at Auckland District Court last
year for nearly 50 counts of fraud and forgery but was allowed to serve her sentence on home detention.
Walsh convinced at least 10 people, including friends who lost more than $2 million, that the money they gave her was going into property development.
To keep her backers happy, she manufactured letters from banks and law firms, and doctored a valuation report during a failed property development in 1998.
The collapse of that development led to the Nigerian group, which promised a $28 million payout from a charitable trust set up for people who had lost money in bad investments.
The catch was that Walsh's investors had to first pay set-up and legal costs, taxes and bank fees. After that had happened, the promised payout never arrived.
At the Supreme Court today, Walsh's lawyer Jeremy Bioletti argued 35 counts of forgery, which related to faxed documents, were questionable because faxes didn't necessarily fall under the legal definition of false documents.
Because the faxes were sent from Walsh's own machine, she was not purporting them to be made by someone else, Mr Bioletti said.
Crown lawyer Matthew Downs said the electronic header of the faxed sheet, which showed Walsh's fax number, was not the essence of the document.
The Supreme Court has reserved its decision.
- NZPA
