$98,900 benefit fraud brings home detention
THE offending, over period of six years, was premeditated and protracted, Judge Michael Turner said sentencing a benefit fraudster in the Dunedin District Court yesterday.
‘‘Essentially, what you did was steal from every taxpayer in the country,’’ he told Neomai Muasika (55), of Dunedin.
Muasika had been convicted of six charges of dishonestly using a document, and one charge of obtaining by deception.
She had pleaded guilty.
The fact summary, from prosecuting counsel Milton Sperring, said as a result of making benefit applications to the Ministry of Social Development, Muasika was granted a domestic purposes benefit from January 21, 2011 to December 8, 2014; sole parent support and disability allowance from February 15, 2015 to February 28 that year; and sole parent support and temporary additional support from September 22, 2016 to January 9, 2017.
As a result of information received, inquiries were carried out and it was established Muasika had never separated from her husband.
The offending resulted in her receiving $61,510.32 benefit overpay ment. Also the recipient of social housing Income Related Rent (IRR), Muasika received a pecuniary advantage in the form of subsidised IRR amounting to $37,454.29 resulting in a total overpayment of $98,964.61.
The judge noted Muasika’s explanation to probation was her husband would return to Tonga without her and the children. She needed funds to keep the house running. And she became accustomed to financial independence.
Commuting an otherwise 15month jail term to home detention ‘‘with community work to enable you to put back into the community you’ve offended against’’, the judge accepted Muasika was genuinely remorseful, her likelihood of reoffending low, and her ability to pay reparation ‘‘negligible’’.
He sentenced her to six months’ home detention (with six months’ post detention conditions) and 200 hours’ community work.
She is also to pay $10,000 reparation at $20 a week, the level of payments to be reassessed in one year’s time.