Auckland resident Sandy Younes was serving a non-custodial sentence for helping to cover up a homicide when she turned her attention to a bank impersonation scam in which one victim lost her life savings.
In all, the former personal trainer helped steal $89,000 from two different victims in July and September 2023, nearly $16,000 of which was spent on a Louis Vuitton shopping spree.
Younes – citing a dysfunctional relationship with a mysterious new man, after her previous dysfunctional relationship resulted in a murder investigation – again asked a judge for mercy as she appeared in Auckland District Court for sentencing on the latest charge last month.
In addition to asking for another sentence of community detention, she sought permanent name suppression – suggesting that media coverage of her previous court case contributed to her criminal relapse.
Judge Debra Bell, however, was dubious of the 25-year-old’s explanations for her offending.
She denied both requests.
“The vulnerability of victims means the public has an increased interest in the transparency of these proceedings,” she said, according to sentencing documents released to the Herald this week.
Younes pleaded guilty last June to a representative charge of money laundering, which carries a sentence of up to seven years’ imprisonment.
Court documents state the two victims were lured by fake emails and texts purporting to be from their banks. Upon calling a number on the messages, they were told by a person pretending to be a bank employee that their accounts had been compromised by scammers.
They were convinced to hand over banking details under the guise of moving the money to a new account that scammers couldn’t touch. But the new account was the scam.
The first victim, who was at retirement age, lost nearly $37,000 – a sum so substantial to her, she told the court, that it caused immense stress and impacted her mental health.
The second victim initially also lost just under $37,000 after she was “manipulated” and put under “extreme pressure” to provide her bank details.
“The stolen funds represented the bulk of her and her husband’s savings and left them with nothing,” Judge Bell said.
“She had to live with the constant fear that the money was lost to her. She not only had money stolen from her, but she also lost time, security and peace of mind. It paid a huge emotional toll on her.”
Younes also got access to the second victim’s credit card details, which she entered into her own phone so the card could be used to make payWave purchases. Younes then arranged for a friend to serve as a mule, using Younes’ phone to purchase three luxury bags, a wallet and an $800 bottle of perfume from the Louis Vuitton store on Queen St, Auckland.
Younes had recruited an 18-year-old she met on social media, described by the judge as a vulnerable young woman, to launder the first victim’s money via the teen’s bank account. She recruited a cousin of her neighbour to help hide the second victim’s money. A third co-conspirator helped her with the shopping spree.
“This shows a very high degree of foresight and planning,” Judge Bell said.
Defence lawyer Marek Hamlin argued in court his client should not be regarded as the principal offender in the scam.
Younes claimed in a pre-sentencing interview that before the latest crimes she had entered into a relationship with a man referred to only as “Mohammed”, who had initially financially supported her but also got her addicted to nitrous oxide. Younes said Mohammed scammed her first, claiming to have received a large inheritance and asking her to recruit people to help him get around international money transfer restrictions by depositing cash into their accounts.
“You state that when you are with a man you become vulnerable, and further you did not think he would lie to your face,” Judge Bell said.
But that explanation, the judge added, not only contradicts the agreed summary of facts for the case, it also contradicts an affidavit Younes submitted to the court days before her sentencing. In it, Younes said she committed the offences to fund her addiction and to cope with the repercussions of adverse media coverage from her last case.
“I struggle somewhat with that explanation, Ms Younes, given the offending at Louis Vuitton in particular,” the judge responded.
“There is no evidence before me that the items were on-sold. Instead, it appears you were not content with some of the items so you exchanged them at a cost. That offending does not support your account of Mohammed wanting bank account details, nor on the face of it as a direct result of your upbringing, nor to fund your addiction.
“I simply do not accept either of the explanations you proffer.”
The latest sentencing appeared to have echoes of Younes’ previous one, Judge Bell said.
In April 2023, she had appeared in the High Court at Auckland with ex-boyfriend Mandal Sellick, a Mongols-gang-affiliated 501 deportee who fatally shot a man in the stomach after an argument over the purity of drugs that Younes had snorted.
Sellick was tried for murder but the jury instead found him guilty of manslaughter. He was sentenced to 11 years and 10 months’ imprisonment. Younes, meanwhile, had pleaded guilty to a single charge of being an accessory after the fact to discharging a firearm with reckless disregard for the safety of others.
She was sentenced by Justice Kiri Tahana to two-and-a-half months’ community detention and 12 months of intensive supervision.
On the night of the killing, Younes had invited friends over to the couple’s Avondale home. A friend of her brother’s, 28-year-old Mars Rakeem, had offered her what was believed to be a mixture of MDMA and cocaine.
When she complained to her partner a short time later that the drugs had hurt her nose, Sellick thought she had been drugged, possibly with methamphetamine or crack cocaine, and he tucked a loaded pistol into his waistband before going downstairs to confront the group, it was alleged at his trial.
Rakeem, unarmed, was shot a short time later. Sellick claimed it was in self-defence, although the jury and the judge rejected the suggestion.
After the shooting, Younes had demanded others who were there that night help clean up the scene, the High Court judge said. She also used Sellick’s gang connections to threaten witnesses not to say anything and offered them money to keep quiet.
Her lawyer at the time described a “dysfunctional” relationship between the two defendants in which Younes, who suffered low self-esteem because of her difficult upbringing, had misplaced loyalty in Sellick as he had been the first person to treat her with love and respect.
In an interview before the most recent sentencing, it was noted Younes portrayed herself “as the victim of other people’s actions, placing yourself in unfortunate situations”, Judge Bell said.
“It appears this mentality remains the same, as you continuously repeated to the probation report writer this time that you were the victim of the scam, and you did not realise what you were being made to do,” she said.
“You did not disclose any sentiment of remorse or concerns regarding the victims. You have since written a letter to the victims and to the court. You explain in the latter letter that you were taken advantage of. Once again, I struggle with the explanations you provide.”
Younes was initially set to be sentenced last year. At a December hearing, she sobbed when informed of media interest in the case and asked her lawyer to seek permanent name suppression, even though she didn’t have the usual first step of interim suppression.
She hadn’t yet told her family about the charges, the court would later be told.
In January this year, despite a revised March sentencing date looming, she started a fulltime, nine-month hairdressing course.
The defence asked for an end sentence of community detention, which would be less restrictive than home detention. Hamlin noted her course commitment, her mother’s ill health after a recent car crash and other factors, including a doctor’s note suggesting Younes doesn’t cope well with a 24-hour curfew.
Crown prosecutor Sophie-Anne Barry sought home detention and opposed suppression, pointing out the victims also opposed allowing Younes to keep her name secret.
“It involved taking advantage of vulnerable members of the community,” Barry said, arguing that it was serious offending regardless of whether the judge believed the defendant’s claims about Mohammed.
The judge allowed 25% in combined reductions for Younes’ guilty plea, her background and addiction, but she declined discounts for remorse and youth.
Judge Bell acknowledged Younes’ background made for “depressingly familiar reading”. She reported an unstable childhood, partly because of her father’s imprisonment, and developing a drug habit early on as a coping mechanism.
Defence lawyer Tiffany Cooper, KC, who represented Younes in the homicide-related case and at the December hearing before she was replaced, said last year that the defendant had come a long way in recent months.
“Her approach to life is different. She’s sober,” the lawyer said. “She still has a great deal of work to do but she’s started in the right direction, at a point in her life where it might be her last chance to do so.”
The judge imposed a sentence of eight months’ home detention and ordered her to pay $50 per week restitution for the $22,756.50 that was still missing. She agreed with the Crown that the seriousness of the charge meant community detention wasn’t appropriate.
“There is no evidence before me that Mohammed was involved,” the judge said.
“You received a significant personal benefit. You were... the principal organiser of the scam. You acted deliberately to ensure you were not detected.”
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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