Conman's last chance

A man who conned an Oamaru woman out of NZ$15,000 has been told to repay the money or face jail time. The man in question, 33-year-old Mrinal Sardana, had his sentencing at the Dunedin District Court this morning deferred until Friday after claiming he could pay the money back in full by that date. I hope he does because the trial judge, Kevin Phillips, told Sardana and his counsel, John Westgate, that failure to front up with the money by 9am New Zealand time on Friday, plus NZ$5000 reparation for emotional harm to the victim, would result in a jail sentence of around 15 months. Sardana was found guilty by a jury in July of obtaining by deception after he falsely represented himself to the victim as a wealthy businessman and said he would establish her in a business. He then accepted $15,000 in cash from the victim on May 17 last year, before flying to Macau and losing the money gambling. At time of writing, he has just under 35 hours to win all that money back otherwise he will be spending the rest of this year, and almost all of next year, behind bars. If he does pay the money back by Friday, he will only face four months' community detention and 300 hours' community work.