Victims yearn to see remorse

Jessica is annoyed she can't justify spending $90 on a new skirt for a job interview. Instead, she buys one for $40.

She is a woman who two years ago was debt-free, lived in a beautiful home with her husband, Alan, and had a healthy superannuation fund thanks to an inheritance.

Today the couple live in a humble Rotorua home with a mortgage, have no financial security and are just starting to recover from their ordeal.

Jessica and Alan are two of more than 120 people who were lured into a phoney investment scheme by Lee Papple and her Australian business partner, Tina West, on the promise of quick money.

Jessica and Alan, whose names have been changed to protect their identities, lost $130,000.

Jessica says she now suffers from depression and Alan is too ashamed to tell his children and close friends what happened.

The couple are furious Papple has maintained she did nothing wrong and want her to admit she destroyed so many lives.

Alan says he almost wishes he had been brutally attacked or lost all their possessions in a house fire because at least someone would say, "You poor bugger". Instead, he feels they have no one to blame but themselves.

Papple and West were described by the Serious Fraud Office as being good at what they did. They were a "formidable team" able to convince the sophisticated and unsophisticated to part with their life savings.

The main selling point for most of the investors was that they had in writing that their principal sums were guaranteed. They were also promised high monthly interest payments - up to 20 per cent.

Aged in their 50s, Jessica and Alan had worked hard to give themselves financial security.

But that all changed in January 2002. Alan came home from work one day and told Jessica about investments their friends were involved in.

He originally thought they were a joke. But they thought about it some more and figured there wasn't any harm in finding out details.

They eventually met Papple, who told them the minimum they could invest was $20,000. They were told they could expect 10 per cent a month interest.

Jessica knew Papple was involved in the Mormon church and figured she could trust her.

The couple initially gave Papple $30,000. After an agreed two-month stand-down, the couple received their first interest payment of $3000 in May, and another $3000 in June.

The couple then took a big punt and scraped together $100,000 from equity in their house, superannuation and inheritance. It was July 2002, only weeks before the Securities Commission shut down the investment companies linked to Papple, Lakeland Wealth Creators and Wespap.

By this time Papple and West were desperate for money from new investors to pay off old investors.

Half the funds were being used to pay earlier investors what they were led to believe were interest payments, a quarter was being spent on personal items, and the rest was being invested in what the office has described as "ridiculous" and "crazy" schemes.

Papple and West were becoming increasingly desperate.

Jessica says a meeting with Papple in July was very different to the one in January - Papple was curt and impatient.

But despite a feeling that something was wrong, they still handed over $100,000.

Later that month, they failed to get their $3000 interest payment from their first investment. Their friends told them not to worry and that sometimes payments were late.

A few more weeks passed and Alan decided to telephone Papple. "This was when all the bullshit excuses started."

In August 2002, Jessica was in her kitchen when she got a call from accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers telling her the company the pair were behind had been liquidated and that it was likely all their money was lost.

"It was the most dreadful feeling."

But Papple's "larger than life" attitude, excuses that she was being bullied by the Serious Fraud Office and promises she could get their money back meant Jessica kept her faith.

It was only about six months ago that she gave up hope.

But Alan's feelings were different. He knew as soon as the companies went under that their money was gone.

Differences of opinions like these put huge strains on their marriage.

"We have had some flaming rows - and some long silences," Jessica says.

Alan says he feels they are being punished for being greedy.

Only recently have they started to feel better about what happened. They keep telling themselves they still have a comfortable life and at least they have their health and each other.

But they haven't been on holidays, have two cars that need replacing and Jessica would love to have their driveway concreted.

More importantly, their attitudes towards people have changed.

"One of the worst things is that we don't trust people anymore. It has completely damaged any trust we are willing to give someone else," says Jessica.

Alan says if someone stole his television, he would blame it on ignorance. "But what Mrs Papple has done is calculating and soulless. It shows an incredible lack of integrity."

Jessica says she hates "the thought that she [Papple] will get to resume a normal life one day and yet our lives have been so changed".

Jessica would like to see the Mormon church held partly accountable for reparation, especially as it has been said in court that Mrs Papple donated money to it.

"If they have got millions knocking around, we'd like to see our money back."

SCAM

A Rotorua District Court jury last week found 50-year-old Lee Papple of Rotorua and 45-year-old Tina West of Australia guilty of conspiring to commit fraud.

The women were involved in schemes through which $14.6 million was fleeced from dozens of investors, mainly from the Bay of Plenty.

Investors were promised huge interest payments - up to 20 per cent a month - with their principal sum safeguarded.

The jury could not decide whether Papple's husband, Bill, 68, was involved in the schemes. He faces a new trial.

Papple and West were remanded in custody until sentencing on January 28.

- NZPA