Fashion designer Kharl WiRepa pleaded guilty to charges in the Rotorua District Court on February 4, 2026. Photo / Kelly Makiha
Fashion designer Kharl WiRepa spent thousands of dollars raised for charity by his Miss Rotorua Pageant contestants, on himself, it can now be revealed.
On the day his trial was to start, the Rotorua former reality TV show star changed his pleas to guilty on charges relating to more than $8000 in fraud, as well as burglary and shoplifting.
Court documents released to the Rotorua Daily Post show that in one offence, he ran into Farmers Rotorua wearing a Spider-Man mask and gloves, with plastic bags on his feet, and filled a bag with fragrance packs before escaping in a waiting getaway car.
WiRepa had denied the allegations for more than a year before changing his plea in the Rotorua District Court on Monday.
He was charged with taking goods valued between $500 and $5000 in the Farmers burglary, shoplifting items worth $767.75 from Woolworths, obtaining $2120 by deception and a representative charge of obtaining $6314 by deception from nine Miss Rotorua contestants.
A police summary of facts said WiRepa received funding for his role as director of the Miss Rotorua Foundation, which ran the pageant.
The 20 contestants in the 2024 pageant were required to raise at least $500 for charity, including Love Soup Rotorua.
At WiRepa’s request, nine contestants paid amounts ranging from $400 to $2005 – totalling $6314 – to his personal bank account.
WiRepa moved the money between his accounts before using it for personal expenses, including at liquor outlets, SkyCity and numerous cash withdrawals.
The Miss Rotorua account, which received funding grants from Rotorua Trust and other payments intended for the foundation, rapidly depleted and had a zero balance at the time of WiRepa’s arrest in December 2024, the summary said.
This account showed no charitable spending, only day-to-day personal spending, including purchases at petrol stations, nightclubs, liquor stores, and takeaways.
WiRepa’s other fraud charge related to ripping off a fellow fashion contact.
WiRepa advertised a trip to London Fashion Week on Facebook and provided his bank account. He told the victim he would sort flights and all arrangements.
The victim paid $2120 into WiRepa’s sole signatory account, named Aotearoa International Performing Arts.
He transferred the money into his spending account, and never bought tickets for London Fashion Week.
WiRepa told police at the time of his arrest that he lost his funding in May 2024 and owed more than $45,000.
He later arranged for the foundation to donate money to Love Soup, but admitted this was an attempt to avoid liability.
WiRepa was in custody when he appeared in court on Monday after breaching his electronically monitored (EM) bail last month.
Through his lawyer, Douglas Hall, WiRepa asked to be bailed until his sentencing on July 3.
Judge John Bergseng reluctantly agreed. One of his reasons was that WiRepa could no longer influence witnesses.
Judge Bergseng told WiRepa to sort his life out.
“Mr WiRepa, you need to take a good long look at yourself because you and the truth are strangers … You simply attempt to talk your way out of things and you make up stories, you attempt to mislead people.”
He described WiRepa’s compliance on EM bail as “appalling”.
“You choose to not comply with the restrictions that are put on you and you wander off, you deviate from approved excursions.”
Judge Bergseng warned any breach would see him back behind bars, despite a prison sentence not necessarily being the outcome in July.
“You have got some significant issues. You’ve clearly got some talent but your talent is fast falling away.”
WiRepa’s guilty pleas follow earlier admissions from the same crime spree at the end of 2024 and start of 2025.
Last month, he pleaded guilty to burglary and unlawfully being on a property.
The burglary related to breaking into 1298 Tūtānekai St on Christmas Eve in 2024.
The address was used for drug transactions by methamphetamine and liquid ecstasy dealer Jeremy David Jones until December 2024, according to charges Jones admitted last week.
WiRepa had also earlier pleaded guilty to possession of methamphetamine and cannabis, burglary of a lamp from Skingraft Rotorua, shoplifting make-up worth $298.93 from New World and $75.76 of cosmetics from Chemist Warehouse, and breaching bail.
The drug charges stem from police raiding the Miss Rotorua Foundation premises on Pukuatua St in December 2024, where WiRepa lived at the time.
WiRepa fought for name suppression after his arrest for 10 months, but his name was revealed in November last year.
It is not his first fall from grace.
WiRepa was convicted in 2017 after pleading guilty to 14 charges of benefit fraud, totalling $11,844.16.
Between 2013 and 2015, WiRepa applied for and received two allowances and an accommodation benefit he was not eligible for.
WiRepa’s designs have been shown at international fashion weeks and in British Vogue.
More recently, he starred in the two seasons of the reality television show Gowns and Geysers, based on the Miss Rotorua pageant.
The shows aired on TVNZ+ and Māori Television.
He has previously spoken publicly about battling methamphetamine.
Kelly Makiha is a senior journalist who has reported for the Rotorua Daily Post for more than 25 years, covering mainly police, court, human interest and social issues.