A WOMAN who tried to milk more than $350,000 out of bushfire and COVID-19 disaster relief funds has pleaded guilty to 45 charges.
Ellen Louise Howard, 31, of Aberdare in the Hunter Valley, faced Cessnock Local Court on Wednesday where her solicitor Donna Smith confirmed pleas of guilty.
An agreed statement of facts was pending, she said, which would require 'reflection' about where the money went and who to.
Ms Smith successfully applied to have the matter referred to the drug court.
Howard attempted to fraudulently obtain money from a variety of disaster relief funds including from the St Vincent de Paul Society, Tasmanian and Victorian-based COVID-19 relief funds, as well as NSW-based bushfire and COVID-19 relief funds.
She was granted 11 payments, totalling $104,000, and attempted to obtain a further $258,000 in grants which she did not get.
In one instance she allegedly claimed to be operating a made-up pharmacy in an area of Tasmania not adversely impacted by bushfires.
Most of Howard's offences involved her accessing the Service NSW website and giving false details to obtain grant money into separate bank accounts.
At the time Howard committed the frauds she was on a community corrections order for shoplifting, and had received an intensive corrections order for drug and damaging property offences.
Hunter Valley Police District detectives arrested her as part of an ongoing investigation into grant frauds being conducted across northern NSW by Strike Force Roche in November, not long after Howard received the ICO,
She was released on conditional bail in the Supreme court in April.
At that hearing, Justice Robert Hulme said that following the catastrophic bushfires and COVID-19 pandemic, state governments were "generously giving away money to assist people affected by such events".
"And because of the urgency about it and the need to provide money to needy people the checks and balances that would otherwise be in place were not there," he said. "In short the money was just there for the asking."
Howard's recent convictions suggest possible drug addiction as the contributing factor to why she allegedly stole so much money, the Supreme Court heard.
Her bail conditions include that she must remain at her Aberdare address, report to police three times a week, not take any illegal drugs and not access the internet.
