The Casanova con
Leister Monk has 150 convictions and was jailed five times over the past 50 years – he has some tales to tell. Sam Sherwood meets the 78-year-old conman with a penchant for gambling.
Leister Walter Monk is without doubt the best-educated conman in New Zealand. Unlike many of his other dubious schemes and dreams, he is quite entitled to claim an MA (Hons), MLitt (Hons), MLS (Hons) and Bachelor of Business Studies. He proudly holds his bound thesis entitled Anthony Trollope and the Woman Question in Victorian Society.
But apart from the degrees, which are propped up against the wall of his shared flat in central Christchurch, Monk, at 78, has little to show for a life that once showed plenty of promise.
He has little income besides his pension, his car is a clapped-out, overheating BMW, and he is in debt.
Yet, he has the dignified air of a retired judge: an air that he had plenty of opportunity to observe given the number of times he has appeared in the dock. In the past 50 years, he has chalked up 150 convictions.
Monk last saw a jail cell in July 2016, perhaps thinking he had finally learned his lesson.
But warning signs have appeared. He is gambling again and he has managed to get a friend
‘It’s not that easy bein’ green when you’re sprawled in a sun lounger with a good book and a better cocktail.’ LYNDA HALLINAN, PAGE THIRTY-FIVE
to lend him $12,000, a sum that he seems unable to pay back.
Not that Monk appears worried when the
Sunday Star-Times calls to follow up on concerns about his recent behaviour.
His first manoeuvre is to point to the university degrees and other documents. These include a personal reference from former Christchurch Mayor Garry Moore and a letter from then Prime Minister Bill English, praising him on his recovery from gambling addiction.
Monk is a regular at Moore’s Tuesday Club meetings when city intellectuals gather to discuss politics and other matters. In his letter, Moore describes Monk as having a ‘‘laconic wit’’ whose political leanings showed ‘‘promise’’.
‘‘If the Justice system was to say ‘here is a rehabilitated man’ they could use Leister Monk as their model,’’ the letter says.
Monk accepts he starts on the back foot when it comes to his trustworthiness. ‘‘I’m operating on the basis you don’t believe anything I say,’’ he says.
He does not deny owing the $12,000 but describes it as a civil debt rather than as the proceeds of a con. The debt started as a $350 loan for repairs to his BMW and continued to grow to help pay other bills.
At times like this, his legal training comes in handy. He has drafted an agreement with his creditor (who did not want to be interviewed) describing the circumstances as a ‘‘conundrum’’ and stressing no ‘‘mens rea’’ (intent) existed on his part.
Monk grew up in Kaikoura and was first jailed in 1961 for three months on a theft conviction. Soon after he was confined again for a period of corrective training.
About 10 years later he was sentenced to 15 months for a spate of offending from which 48 charges of false pretences and one of deception resulted. He continued to commit fraud on release and was jailed again. This time for four years in 1975.
In 1987, he was back in jail for two and a half years, after taking $540,000 from the New Zealand Nurserymen’s Association. Again jail failed to deter or rehabilitate him. He returned to a life of fraud but wasn’t charged until 2011.
According to the summary of facts, obtained by the Sunday Star-Times, Monk befriended potential investors, falsely representing that he was a man of considerable means, and had overseas funds amounting to several hundred thousand dollars in the early years and in later years several million;
but that he required sums of money to pay various fees including bank fees, legal fees and other costs so that he could access the large amounts.
Over about 22 years Monk referred to offshore funds that he indicated he could access. Police said the amounts varied, Monk was often vague about the actual amount held in trust but figures as high as £2 million were mentioned, both as an inheritance and the amount he had invested in a movie venture.
Some of the people he targeted were so convinced by him they approached other potential investors and acted as his ‘‘go between’’ or contact person to encourage other people to ‘‘invest’’ with him.
Police said because the fraud continued for so many years, the total amount of money obtained by Monk was unknown.
Records showed that between 2003 and 2011 more than $620,000 in fraudulently obtained money was deposited into bank accounts linked to Monk.
Between 1991 and 2007 Monk deposited $735,000 into TAB accounts, withdrawing $460,000. His accounts showed sales of $1,603,619 and payments of $1,338,259. The figures related to telephone betting only.
Monk made a number of false representations over the years, including claiming he was a lecturer at Auckland University and had a £2 million investment stake in a movie about Prince Obolensky.
His victims included many vulnerable single women, his cousin, a friend of his son’s girlfriend and a man he had a minor crash with.
One victim was TAB employee Elaine Dallimore. After entering a relationship with her, he persuaded her to part with $108,000 and give him credit at the TAB. She lost her job and superannuation and had to sell her home.
He conned a Wellington widow out of $330,000 and an Auckland widow out of $140,000. The Auckland woman started a relationship with Monk in 2010 after the two met at a car wash and bonded over a shared interest in English literature and sports. She did not know he was a fraudster and problem gambler.
After Monk was jailed, the victim tried to sue the NZ Racing Board for allowing him to gamble when it knew his criminal past. The case was struck out.
Monk says avoiding detection was ‘‘pretty simple’’.
‘‘It was just borrowing money off friends – I wasn’t going and holding up banks and worried about being identified and that sort of thing, but I did treat people very badly, there’s no doubt about that.’’
Monk claims the gambling started when he was 15 and it quickly became an obsession. ‘‘I’ve got the wrong personality to gamble. I think there are some people that gamble on horses that might actually win money because they’ve got cash flows and they’re probably quite patient,’’ he says.
‘‘I was probably the most astute punter but I was also the worst punter in the world because I was always chasing my tail.’’
He claims that during the early 2000s he had four TABs where he had unlimited credit and where he made up about half their turnover.
His normal Saturday during this time, when he was living in Auckland, was spent desperately trying to make more money after losing it all the prior night.
‘‘I would probably get a phone call from my girlfriend at 9am. ‘Do you want to get brunch?’, I’d say, ‘no’. I would be resentful that she even phoned me. I’d probably go down to the local butcher and borrow $1000 until Tuesday and then I’d go to the TAB.
His girlfriend would ring him throughout the day only to be told he was busy. At 8pm he would still be at the TAB, hoping to recoup his losses with a big win.
‘‘I’d go home with my tail between my legs, lost all my money, probably buy some greasy fish and chips on my way home, sit there and have a beer and think right, I’m f---ed, I’ve got $1000 I’ve got to give the butcher by Tuesday and the girlfriend’s pissed off with me.’’
Monk says he was married three times, each union ending largely as a result of his gambling addiction. His second wife, former National Party president Michelle Boag, tried for many years to save him, but they split in 1989 after seven years marriage.
‘‘I knew best and didn’t accept I had a problem. ‘‘She said when she first met me she thought I was the wittiest man she’d ever met. By the time she divorced me she thought I was nothing but a smart-ass.’’
Monk was for a time in charge of finances at the New Zealand Nursery Association, now known as Nursery and Garden Industry Association of New Zealand, while Boag was the Prime Minister’s press secretary.
‘‘I didn’t need to gamble, but I did, and to excess.’’
Monk hit rock bottom when he was jailed for the fifth time in 2013 aged 72. The sentencing judge said Monk used his charm and intelligence to lull unsuspecting victims into various fraudulent schemes, leaving behind a trail of despair, anger, and hurt that time might never heal.
At Northland’s Ngawha Prison, he started a group called Shakespeare Behind Bars, that performed plays he wrote including Three’s a Crowd, about a bigamy trial in which Bill Clinton and Hugh Hefner appear as jurors.
Monk also helped write the Ngawha News ,a weekly newsletter distributed to fellow inmates, and helped teach some of the youth inmates how to read and write.
‘‘It’s not a very pleasant place, prison. You’re deprived of just little things like tenderness and love and affection. It’s pretty much dog-eat-dog, fortunately for me people knew I could help them with letters and parole applications. I was never threatened or anything like that.’’
Monk was declined parole in 2015, with the Parole Board saying he had a narcissistic view of the world and an inflated sense of self-worth.
‘‘His demeanour at the hearing still suggested a glib belief in his own superior intelligence, academic achievements, eminent friends and associates, and ability to live a simple life without the need for affluence.’’
The majority of the board doubted his credibility and disbelieved his protestations of remorse. He served another year in jail and when he was released from prison to live in Christchurch the board mentioned his ‘‘shocking history of dishonesty offending’’.
‘‘Mr Monk acknowledges a long history of gambling addiction. He did however, also recognise before us today that was not his only shortcoming,’’ the decision noted.
‘‘He opined that he had flaws in his character with respect to his honesty and, as he put, his duplicity over the years.’’
The board said it could only be assured Monk had in fact changed if he did not reoffend once released. For the following six months he was not allowed to handle other people’s money and was not allowed to bet in New Zealand or overseas by using the phone, internet or any other electronic means.
Sitting in his office, surrounded by books on the English Renaissance, Winston Churchill and cricket celebrities, Monk reflects that a lot of his life has been ‘‘wasted’’.
‘‘I would describe my life as being very foolish and a lot of setbacks. I don’t blame anyone else. I only blame myself. Nobody made me do these things.
‘‘Obviously I’ve got some modicum of intelligence, a lot of people respect my business acumen. But, I’m obviously someone who . . . probably never fulfilled what my mother thought I might.’’
He now volunteers at a post office in Christchurch where he sorts out magazines, but is not allowed to handle cash. The manager says he’s ‘‘solid and reliable’’. He also provides occasional legal help.
As for returning to gambling: ‘‘It’s one of those things that I don’t think I’ll ever shake. It’s the adrenaline urge that you seek from time to time.’’
He admits he was ‘‘probably a bit casual’’ about borrowing money off his friend, but says he intends to pay him back, possibly with the help of money coming from a potential sales job.
‘‘I always intended to pay the money back.’’
I wasn’t going and holding up banks and worried about being identified and that sort of thing. But I did treat people very badly, there’s no doubt about that.
Leister Monk