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A woman failed to stop her extradition to Australia to face 136 theft charges.
Marion Joan Pearson was banned from the financial services industry in 2015 for misconduct.
The Supreme Court refused her leave to appeal, allowing her extradition to proceed.
A woman who formerly worked as a financial adviser in Perth will be sent back to Australia to face 136 theft charges after her extradition bid failed.
The Magistrates Court of Western Australia issued New Zealand citizen Marion Joan Pearson with a warrant for her arrest on theft chargesin December 2018.
In 2019, she was arrested and the District Court in New Zealand endorsed the Australian warrant for her extradition, granting her bail and interim name suppression.
Pearson was found eligible to be extradited, with the court rejecting her arguments that extradition would be “unjust or oppressive due to the time that had passed since the alleged offences”.
Pearson’s application for permanent name suppression was refused, the court concluding the extreme hardship threshold was not met.
A woman who formerly worked as a financial adviser in Perth will be sent back to Australia to face 136 theft charges after her extradition bid failed. Photo / 123rf
She then took her case to the High Court, Court of Appeal and eventually New Zealand’s highest court, with the Supreme Court refusing her leave to appeal on Thursday.
In an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (Asic) statement in November 2015, Pearson worked at Ballast Financial Management from 2007 to October 2013.
Pearson was also a sole director and shareholder of a business called Colisa, which traded as Anmar Financial Consultants.
In 2015, Asic permanently banned Pearson from the financial services industry after an investigation found her conduct in advising self-managed superannuation fund clients contravened financial services laws.
Asic found Pearson “engaged in conduct that was dishonest – including creating documents to disguise the fact that client money was paid into Colisa’s bank account without the relevant client’s knowledge or authority”.
Asic also found she “engaged in conduct that was misleading or deceptive, in that she misled Ballast and specified clients into believing the clients’ funds were placed in particular investments, when in fact, she had not done so”.
Asic commissioner John Price, in 2015, said: “If a financial adviser engages in dishonest conduct, Asic will remove them from the industry.”
The 2015 Asic statement said Pearson was living in New Zealand.
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