Fraudster gran to be deported to New Zealand

Francesca Marzella, who hasn't lived in New Zealand for more than 30 years, defrauded an elderly dementia sufferer out of her home. Photo / Shestock

A grandmother sentenced for a "despicable" fraud that cost an elderly Queensland dementia sufferer her $520,000 home is to be deported to New Zealand.

Nearly a decade after conning 89-year-old Marguerite Stewart out of her Gold Coast home - and spending four and a half years on the run in Europe - Francesca Jean Marzella is being kicked out of the country to New Zealand, where she hasn't lived for more than 30 years.

The 63-year-old, who is seriously ill with Crohns disease, was being deported after an order from Peter Dutton, Australia's hard-line Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, was upheld by the country's Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

Marzella had befriended Mrs Stewart while she was living in a nursing home, and later arranged for her to visit the bank to cancel the power-of-attorney of her great nephew, David Stoneley, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported.

A week later, Marzella had a justice of the peace sign over the home into her own name, before selling it on the internet for $370,000, banking the money into an offshore account and fleeing the country.

While in Europe, she lived on Australian and British passports under the names Marilyn Gray Howitt and Taylor Scheaffer - but time caught up with her when she was arrested upon her return to Australia and charged with defrauding Mrs Stewart.

She later fled again after she released on bail and spent five years living in Coffs Harbour, in New South Wales, before being arrested a second time in 2014.

By that time, Mrs Stewart had died.

"It's despicable - you can't even put words to it," David Stoneley told the Bulletin at the time Marzella was sentenced to five years in jail in June last year.

"I don't understand how you could do that to another human and think it's okay to get away with it."

But four months into her jail term, Marzella was granted parole in October last year, before the order for her deportation was upheld late last month.