Former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman will find out her punishment on Thursday for shoplifting more than $9000 in clothing.
Judge June Jelas reserved her decision on Gharahman’s sentence at the Auckland District Court today, though she has already confirmed it would not include time in prison.
Ghahraman did not speak to media as she left the courthouse this afternoon. She got into a large SUV with darkly tinted windows, joined by her lawyer.
The sentencing hearing began with defence lawyer Annabel Cresswell telling the court a mental health report about Ghahraman was the crux of her submissions.
It found a “clear diagnosis of complex PTSD” with two key contributing factors: her early life in war-torn Iran and the “public vitriol, threats and abuse” she received while in Parliament.
Cresswell said the “threats of rape and death were constant and ongoing and credible”, to the point where her security detail was similar to that of the Prime Minister.
She described “loss-reactive shoplifting” in which otherwise law-abiding individuals steal as part of a mental health crisis.
The fact she had so much to lose showed a mental health crisis, Cresswell said.
“This offending was extraordinarily out of character,” she explained. “She didn’t need the items that were taken.”
“All of this offending is this person breaking under extreme mental stress... This was not something that was in any way done for fun or a thrill.”
Cresswell noted her client was a “talented academic and lawyer”, which was important to consider as the judge decided whether to grant a discharge without conviction.
“It is a conviction that could stop Ms Ghahraman from moving onwards and forward from this offending.”
Judge Jelas said at the outset of the hearing that she wouldn’t be imposing a sentence of imprisonment and allowed Ghahraman to remain seated in the public gallery.
“No one could reasonably suggest an outcome of imprisonment” for a first-time offender, she noted.
So the question remains what non-custodial sentence Ghahraman will receive or if she will be granted a discharge without conviction, which would result in no sentence.
“The Law Society will likely already know about this in any event... and be obliged to consider the nature of the offending,” McClintock said.
Ghahraman, a former human rights lawyer who hopes to return to practice, doesn’t currently have a certificate to practice law - MPs aren’t allowed to do so.
But her lawyer suggested she hopes to apply for one.
“She has a tremendous amount of talent and a tremendous amount to give back to the community. And a conviction... could stop that.”
She noted that the Law Society could assess Ghahraman’s application even if she is convicted, but it would be “another hurdle”.
“She says she has a real fear of how her future will be affected,” Cresswell said, explaining that a conviction would potentially harm her client’s ongoing mental health.
“She deserves to move forward, having taken every possible step to apologise and mitigate the harm,” Cresswell said as she finished her oral submissions, describing the case as “unusual” but an “excellent candidate” for a discharge without conviction.
Crown Solicitor Alysha McClintock said the offending had the hallmarks of pre-meditation.
“This was a spree of offending. It’s not a one-off event. It’s not a ‘moment of madness’-type case.”
There might be another explanation for the offending other than a mental health breakdown, McClintock said: “Simply that she wanted the items that she took.
”On its face, that explanation, given the [pre-meditated] nature of the conduct, appears the more likely of the two,” she said.
McClintock also suggested Judge Jelas take into account the breach of trust with the public given “a person of her standing and her role has a certain standard expected of them - as a former lawyer and a member of Parliament”, and the “heightened understanding of the significance of their conduct”.
The link between Ghahraman’s mental health and her criminal conduct was not as strong as the defence made it out to be, the prosecutor argued, noting a mental health assessor found there was “a possible link”.
”The possibility of that is no more than that - a possibility.”
As for the consequences of a conviction, McClintock said it’s not a conviction but the offending itself that might jeopardise a future legal career.
“Either way, it is a matter which the Law Society is able to assess,” when considering if she is a “person of good character” befitting a law licence.
Judge Jelas told the court she will deliver a reserved sentencing decision on Thursday at 1pm.
The charges saw her political career crumble earlier this year after she admitted to stealing nearly $9000 worth of retail items from high-end stores in Auckland and Wellington.
The 43-year-old defendant, who hasn’t practised law since her high-profile ascension to Parliament in 2017, was expected to seek a discharge without conviction as she appears before Judge June Jelas in Auckland District Court.
If not granted a discharge without conviction, she faces a sentence of up to seven years’ imprisonment.
Ghahraman’s political career went into a death spiral in January after it was revealed she was suspected of having stolen over $7800 worth of clothing during two trips to Scotties Boutique in Ponsonby in the week before Christmas last year. It was later revealed she was also suspected of pilfering $695 worth of clothing from Cre8tiveworx in Wellington last October and a $389 cardigan from Standard Issue in Newmarket during the same three-day period when she targeted the Ponsonby store.
The crimes were not the sort of well-executed heists one might expect from a career criminal, according to descriptions of the incidents outlined in court documents.
During the December 22 Newmarket theft, Ghahraman chatted with the store manager before stuffing the navy blue jumper from the display into a large tote bag as the manager’s attention was diverted, according to the agreed summary of facts.
“The manager immediately noticed the cardigan was no longer on the table when Ms Ghahraman left the store,” court documents state. “Ms Ghahraman was the only customer in the store.”
Visiting the Ponsonby store with two associates a day earlier, the politician had stuffed a $1900 black Acne Studios single-breasted coat into her tote bag while in the changing room. Then, while continuing to browse, she stole a $160 Comme des Garcons wallet.
She brought two tote bags and a satchel with her when she next returned to the same store on December 23, leaving without paying for a $650 Bao Bao Issey Miyake Lucent bag, a $333 Two Squares dress, a $4500 Row Calanthe dress and a $290 Lemaire crepe tank top. The shop assistant was suspicious and asked to search her bags after following her out of the store.
“Ghahraman refused to show the store employee the contents of her bags,” court documents state. “She returned briefly inside the store with the employee where she offered an explanation, pointing to a dress hung inside a coat as the reason for the misunderstanding. The employee accepted this explanation and allowed her to leave.”
An associate of Ghahraman’s returned some of the items later that afternoon, but the politician wasn’t with her.
CCTV from inside Scotties Boutique, which would later be widely circulated as a media firestorm over the allegations brewed, left no question that it was the MP and that it had been her intention to steal.
She resigned from Parliament on January 16. Ghahraman, who until days earlier had been the Green Party’s justice spokeswoman, left it to party leaders to front media. But in a written statement she apologised for her “completely out of character” behaviour.
“I am not trying to excuse my actions, but I do want to explain them,” she said. “The mental health professional I see says my recent behaviour is consistent with recent events giving rise to extreme stress response, and relating to previously unrecognised trauma.”
She added: “People should, rightly, expect the highest standards of behaviour from their elected representatives. I fell short. I’m sorry. It’s not a behaviour I can explain because it’s not rational in any way, and after medical evaluation, I understand I’m not well.”
In her 2020 memoir, Pull No Punches, Ghahraman talked openly about having seen a psychologist for years to deal with anxiety even as her legal and then political careers flourished.
Her political profile was high from the start, noted as New Zealand’s first refugee to be sworn in as an MP when her eighth spot on the party list in 2017 allowed her a seat in Parliament after the special votes were tallied.
Profiles often focused on her history as a human rights lawyer, having worked with United Nations war crimes tribunals after obtaining a master’s degree at Oxford University. But since her return to New Zealand in 2012, she had focused largely on criminal defence work in South Auckland, which she often described as another form of human rights work.
She spent four years on the executive committee of the New Zealand Criminal Bar Association before joining Parliament. She told the Herald in 2017 that she hoped her time as a defence lawyer - helping clients find the rehabilitative resources they needed - would inform the way she approached her new political career.
She explained: “How we treat everyone, including the delinquents, that’s the making of us.”
Ghahraman pleaded guilty to all four shoplifting charges during her first court appearance in March.
The sentencing hearing is scheduled to begin at 2.15pm.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
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