Jailed Facebook fraudster Monaro Kerr-Wilson has more prison time added to sentence

RNZ News

5 hours ago

By Belinda Feek, Open Justice reporter of
Monaro Kerr-Wilson, 21, in the Hamilton District Court at an earlier hearing.
Photo:
Open Justice / Belinda Feek
A Facebook fraudster already behind bars for
scamming people out of $30,000 worth of property
has been given more jail time for another con.
In February, Monaro Kerr-Wilson was sentenced to 22 months' imprisonment after he "bought" two vehicles, one for $20,000 and the other for $10,000, from people on Marketplace in October last year.
But he didn't really buy the cars. He used a fake screenshot from his bank account to convince the owners the money had gone through and then took the vehicles.
This week, he returned to Hamilton District Court, this time by audio-visual link from prison, to be sentenced on another charge of obtaining by deception relating to a third vehicle.
In his latest scheme, the 21-year-old was operating with a co-offender.
The pair contacted the victim last year, who was selling his red 2005 Holden Commodore on Facebook Marketplace for $12,000.
They met at a service station in Hampton Downs and Kerr-Wilson agreed to pay the $12,000 through an online bank transfer.
The victim invited Kerr-Wilson to test drive the car, to which he said, "no", while the co-offender gave a name that she used in "multiple other Facebook scams".
The co-offender completed "what appeared to be" a genuine online payment in front of the victim, and then sent him a screenshot of it.
After the victim thought he'd been paid, he handed over the keys and left.
However, the victim did not received the $12,000.
Police found Kerr-Wilson driving the victim's stolen Holden a few hours later.
When questioned by officers, he said he had "no idea" about the theft allegation.
However, at the latest sentencing, Kerr-Wilson's counsel, Rhiannon Scott, told Judge Noel Cocurullo the latest offence was "effectively a wash-up charge" as it happened about the same time as his previous offending.
The difference was that he wasn't charged with the third offence until this year.
That meant Judge Cocurullo couldn't sentence him afresh, leaving him to determine what sentence Kerr-Wilson would have been given in February if sentenced on all three charges.
Scott suggested an additional prison sentence of two to four months, which prompted the judge to note that if Kerr-Wilson had been jailed on all charges earlier, he would likely already be out of prison.
If a person is jailed for two years or less, they are eligible for release after serving half of their sentence.
However, if they are sentenced to more than that much jail time, they are eligible for parole after serving one-third of the sentence.
"It's actually counted against him because if it was there at the time of sentencing he might have tipped outside the 24 months, with eligibility at one-third ... he probably would have got something like two years and two months, maybe a bit longer, which means after about nine months he could have been paroled," the judge noted.
Kerr-Wilson was jailed for an additional four months and ordered to pay the latest victim $500, which would go towards his insurance claim.
This spate of offending is not the first for Kerr-Wilson.
In 2022, when he was aged 18, he was sentenced on 15 charges for similar offending.
This story was first published by the
New Zealand Herald
.