A Hunter woman who fell victim to a scammer she met on a dating website and unwittingly allowed $164,000 to be laundered in her bank accounts over six years made no financial gain and has been left "clearly scarred" by the experience, Newcastle District Court has heard.
Debra Lee-Ann Costelloe will be sentenced on Wednesday after she pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a charge of receiving proceeds of crime while being reckless as to whether they were the proceeds of crime - meaning the Crown will take no action on an original charge of knowingly dealing with the proceeds of crime.
Within a month of Ms Costelloe striking up a romance with "William Thompson" online, the mystery man began asking for money.
By this time, Ms Costelloe had been in regular contact with "William Thompson" - who claimed to be a UK-born, Sydney man staying in Ghana for business - and began to send him deposits of what would ultimately end up being tens of thousands of dollars.
But then, "William Thompson" told Ms Costelloe he did not want to set up a bank account in Ghana and asked her to allow money from his investors to be transferred through her accounts.
She agreed, with $164,000 passing through her accounts before she was charged last year.
When the Crown argued in court on Tuesday that Ms Costelloe had been warned by her bank about the illegalities of laundering money, Judge Penelope Wass described the scenario as a "double-edged sword" - saying it was reasonable that Ms Costelloe thought there was no further concern given the bank did not follow-up about the issue in a timely manner.
When the Crown suggested Ms Costelloe had been gullible, Judge Wass replied: "It's clear, isn't it? This is a woman who has given away all her money to someone she's never met".
The court heard that Ms Costelloe "cleaned out" her superannuation fund and worked a third job in order to provide money to the scammer.
The defence said that the extra-curial punishment Ms Costelloe faced had been "immense" and that she had "not only poured out her heart, emotionally, but emptied every cent from her bank account".
"This has been a grueling experience for her," Ms Costelloe's solicitor Isabel Reed said.
Judge Wass adjourned the matter to Wednesday for sentencing, after arguments about whether a possible Section 10 good behaviour bond - which would record no conviction against Ms Costelloe - would be appropriate or not.
The change in charge yesterday came after Judge Wass last month said she could not accept Ms Costelloe's guilty plea to knowingly dealing with the proceeds of crime, after the 50-year-old gave evidence that she had been duped and did not financially benefit from the scheme.
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