They show Maddren was linked to, but not charged with, a Sim-card scam in which a victim’s phone number was hijacked and the device used to drain nearly $36,000 from a bank account.
Maddren was jailed for three years and two months in July after pleading guilty to five counts of using a forged document, four of obtaining by deception, money laundering, possession of methamphetamine, and driving while his licence was suspended.
A District Court judge sentenced him for his “prolific and ongoing sophisticated offending”, but the length of his jail term was set in the mistaken belief that his victims had lost a total of $180,000.
In fact, several charges against Maddren had been withdrawn, and the correct total of losses being dealt with by the court was just under $157,000.
Maddren appealed his sentence to the High Court, where in a recent judgment Justice Geoffrey Venning reduced his term by two months, to one of three years in prison.
Maddren’s dishonesty offending spanned several years and followed on from previous convictions.
In December 2019 he used a forged driving licence as identification to rent a Toyota Land Cruiser worth $80,000. It was never returned.
The same month, Maddren used a fraudulently obtained credit card to obtain goods from JB Hi-Fi and a Carpet Court store in Auckland. He ran up more than $14,200 in spending.
Three times between December 2020 and January 2021, Maddren transferred money from fraudulently obtained credit cards into bogus TAB accounts, then withdrew $5100 from the TAB using forged driving licences.
In February 2021, Maddren used a forged driver’s licence to obtain a new Sim card for someone else’s phone number. An “unknown person” then transferred $35,945 out of the victim’s bank account which was linked to the phone.
In March 2021, Maddren used a forged driver’s licence to get a new Sim card for another victim’s phone number. A subsequent attempt to access that person’s bank account was unsuccessful.
Also in March 2021, Maddren used a fraudulently obtained credit card to buy $5427 worth of goods from JB Hi-Fi in Botany.
The same month, Maddren opened a joint bank account using a forged licence. He admitted he received $4800 out of $24,000 obtained from another victim.
Maddren was arrested in October 2022. Police found a small amount of methamphetamine when they searched his car.
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.
