A young man previously jailed for scamming property off Facebook Marketplace with fake screenshots from his account, has been back to his old ways, this time ‘buying’ a vehicle and trailer worth $30,000.
Monaro Kerr-Wilson, now aged 20, is beginning another jail term after failing in his bid for home detention at a Hamilton District Court sentencing this week.
Kerr-Wilson notched up about $80,000 of Marketplace frauds in 2022 and was jailed for 16 and a half months but allowed to apply for home detention.
At the time, Judge Brett Crowley told him that he targeted “high-value goods because you wanted to obtain the most money you could by deceiving people in this way, knowing that you were never going to be able to repay them and in my view, you never had any intention to”.
He also didn’t believe Kerr-Wilson would stop defrauding people.
“There’s no indication that you are going to. Time will tell,” he said at the time.
Kerr-Wilson said he did it to pay off a drug debt with a gang. Today, through counsel Sacha Napa, he said his latest offending was to try to get out of his association with gangs.
Last August a man listed his vehicle for sale on Facebook.
Kerr-Wilson, who according to court documents now lives in Auckland, agreed to pay $20,000 and showed him a fake screenshot of a bank transfer.
The owner left the vehicle with the keys inside and went to Auckland thinking he’d been paid. He never received any money.
Kerr-Wilson was arrested while driving the same vehicle.
Then on October 26 at Ngāruawāhia, Kerr-Wilson saw a trailer listed for sale for $10,000 and again, agreed to buy it and transfer the money.
The money never landed in the victim’s bank.
Kerr-Wilson also admitted numerous charges including driving while disqualified, dangerous driving, failing to stop, breaching release conditions, possession of an offensive weapon and assaulting a person in a family relationship, from between September and November.
The assault involved Kerr-Wilson driving a black Mercedes on September 9 and swerving violently in his lane and when he came to a stop, the victim jumped out of the car.
He did a u-turn, driving through a red light narrowly missing a pedestrian, and got out and dragged her by the hair and to the car.
On November 5, he was driving a Holden Commodore with false plates in Hamilton and when police signalled him to stop, he sped off before crashing in the suburb of St Andrews.
He then ran and while being chased by a police dog, a knife fell out of his pocket.
Nepe accepted she was handing up a historical Section 27 report - the same one used at his sentencing in 2022 - but maintained it was still relevant.
It detailed his upbringing; being uplifted at age 6 and put into state care due to growing up around alcohol, drugs, gangs, and violence.
In his latest pre-sentence report, Kerr-Wilson spoke about “trying to sell that vehicle to get out of his association with gangs”.
He was also still young - now aged 20 and a father to four children.
“I don’t think he’s really ever been in an environment where he has been settled,” Nepe told Judge Marshall, urging that he issue a 25% discount for his background factors.
The mother of their four children had also just been released from jail for similar offending, she said.
Two children were being cared for by Kerr-Wilson’s mother, who was in court to support her son with other whanau, and two were in Oranga Tamariki care.
Nepe urged Judge Marshall to hand down a home detention sentence so he could help care for his children.
“He’s very young, 20, and has spent about four and a half months inside already.”
Judge Marshall said Kerr-Wilson had taken “little or no steps towards rehabilitation”.
He accepted his cultural report was still relevant but only agreed to a 15% discount.
He declined to issue a home detention sentence as he breached the sentence last time, along with his release conditions.
“I agree with the pre-sentence report writer that your chances of complying with a home detention sentence are low and virtually non-existent.
“To hold you accountable a sentence of imprisonment is required.”
Kerr-Wilson was jailed for 22 months and disqualified from driving for 12 months.
Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21.