A “get out of jail free” scheme using faked death certificates may have far-reaching ramifications for all other prisoners seeking compassionate leave.
And it wasn’t only the certificates that were counterfeit. The “order of service” for a funeral that never happened and even tears of grief were faked.
One of the two people behind the unlawful enterprise, Adam Martin, 35, of Puketaha, was sentenced in the Hamilton District Court on Thursday, after earlier pleading guilty to three representative charges of using forged documents.
As the summary of facts on the case revealed, Martin and his girlfriend – and co-accused – Louise Witteveen, 29, cooked up the scheme in late January and early February, while Martin was a remand prisoner at Spring Hill Prison.
Christel Yardley/Stuff
Prisoners Adam Martin and Teina Rongonui used fake death certificates, death notices and even a fake order of service to engineer their release from Spring Hill Prison.
Communicating through prison phone calls, Witteveen – who has pleaded guilty to similar charges and will be sentenced in February – and Martin concocted an elaborate ruse involving the supposed death of his father.
It was a ploy that came to light after some of the phone calls were overheard. The first of these was on January 31, when Martin instructed Witteveen to “make up my auntie’s name”.
The following day Witteveen sent a text message to Martin’s lawyer, advising that his father, Paul Martin, had passed away of a heart attack in the early hours of the morning.
In a phone call between the couple that day, Martin was heard trying to memorise the date and time of his father’s alleged death. He also told Witteveen to tell his lawyer that the funeral was for that coming weekend.
There was “no room for error”, he told her.
Later that day, after the pair had both spoken with the lawyer, Witteveen called Martin again and said she had pretended to cry over the phone while talking to the lawyer. Martin said he had done the same.
Martin’s lawyer had told them about documents needed for an application for compassionate leave from prison. The pair rehearsed their plan, which involved Witteveen accompanying an accomplice called “Nikki” to a JP to get an affidavit affirming the death of Martin’s father signed.
“Who is Nikki going to be?” Witteveen asked. “An aunty?”
Martin replied: “Yeah, my dad’s sister”.
But in a third phone call later that day they changed their mind: “Rose. I’m going to say her name is Rose,” Witteveen said.
The pair argued about their tactics. “We need something believable, babe,” Martin told her.
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In monitored phone calls, Adam Martin and his girlfriend Louise Witteveen were heard making up a name for the person who’d pretend to be Martin’s aunty (file photo).
On February 2, Witteveen used her work email address to send a forged tangi notice and a forged death certificate she had created to another email address. She then used that address to send the documents on to Martin’s lawyer, to give the appearance they had been sent by another person.
Witteveen also created a letter of support from the fictitious “Rosie Martin” which she sent to the lawyer, who made an application for compassionate bail in the Hamilton District Court two days later.
Martin was released later that day.
Although Martin returned to prison as scheduled a few days later, a fellow prisoner who used the couple to engineer his own unwarranted release from jail, did not.
Teina Rongonui, who went on the run after his release in early March, was subsequently tracked down and arrested. On Wednesday this week he was sentenced to two years and six months of imprisonment.
With Witteveen’s help, he had alleged his mother had died. Witteveen used the same technique to provide Rongonui’s lawyer with a faked order of service, a forged death certificate, and a letter of support to get him out of jail.
The Department of Internal Affairs later confirmed that the death of Rongonui’s mother “Lynette Barbarich” did not actually happen, and she had never existed in the first place.
And in early April, Martin and Witteveen tried the tactic again, this time using the story that he needed to attend the unveiling of his dad’s headstone.
This time, however, the plan fell apart. The proprietors of the venue where that ceremony was due to take place were contacted.
Not only was the event not happening, the venue had been closed for the past two years.
In court on Thursday, Judge Glen Marshall told Martin his scheming had put future compassionate bail applications by other prisoners at risk, and each request would have to undergo intensified scrutiny.
Martin’s counsel Mark Jepson said his client had been deemed suitable for the Tai Aroha intensive rehabilitation programme.
Although Martin’s scheming “strikes at the heart of justice” and “thoroughly deserves to be recognised in a custodial sentence to deter others”, admittance to the Tai Aroha programme was rare and granted only to offenders who had proved their desire to change their ways, the judge said.
He noted the contents of a Section 27 cultural report, which found that Martin came from a dysfunctional background and without strong intervention would be “trapped in a lifestyle that ensures ongoing interactions with the criminal justice system”.
He sentenced Martin to four months of home detention, to be served at the Tai Aroha residential facility in Hamilton.
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