Inmate cooked up dad’s ‘death’ to leave prison
The Black Power member who convinced a prison officer to smuggle drugs into jail for him also tried to use a fake death certificate to obtain compassionate bail - and conduct a drug deal.
The Waikato Times can reveal new detail about Isaac Hoeta’s offending after receiving his sentencing notes.
Hoeta faced a number of drugs and bribery charges linked to him convincing a Corrections officer to smuggle contraband including methamphetamine, cannabis, tobacco and synthetic cannabis into the prison in exchange for cash payments.
The sentencing notes revealed that on April 6, 2022, Hoeta called an unidentified person from the prison yard phone to ask them to contact his lawyer and file a compassionate bail application.
His lawyer filed the bail application two days later.
“Attached was a death notice in the name of [Hoeta’s father] and details for an attended burial service,” the notes said.
However, “inquiries were completed and it was shown that the death certificate was forged and your father was not deceased.
“When numerous discrepancies were uncovered such as the location of the ceremony and place of burial which had no bookings the application was withdrawn.”
The sentencing notes state Hoete had planned to be “uplifted” from prison on April 9, 2022, then “transferred to Auckland to purchase 56 grams of cannabis for $800, then return to the Tokoroa area to on sell it”.
“You failed to obtain bail so the matter could not proceed.”
Hoeta isn’t the first person to attempt to use a forged death certificate as a getout-of-jail card.
In December 2022 Adam Martin was sentenced in the Hamilton District Court to four months home detention for a scheme cooked up with his girlfriend Louise Witteveen while he was in prison on remand.
Witteveen used her work email address to send a forged tangi notice and a forged death certificate she had created to another email address. She then used that address to send the documents on to Martin’s lawyer, to give the appearance they had been sent by another person.
Witteveen also created a letter of support from the fictitious “Rosie Martin” which she sent to the lawyer, who made an application for compassionate bail in the Hamilton District Court two days later. Martin was released later that day.
For his offending Judge Raymond Marshall sentenced Hoeta to two years seven months’ jail for the offering to supply methamphetamine charges, one year and six months for the corruption charges, two years and seven months for supplying methamphetamine, one year and six months for corruption.