A Victorian mother who defrauded Centrelink to help fund her family’s holidays will spend two-and-a-half months behind bars.
Jade Cheasley, 31, lied so she could receive $102,086 in parenting payments she was not entitled to between March 2013 and May 2018.
She was jailed in Victoria’s County Court on Friday for a total of 18 months.
Judge Mark Dean ordered Cheasley serve two-and-a-half months before being released into the community on a court order.
Cheasley lived with her husband and their three children at Craigieburn, north of Melbourne.
But she told Centrelink she was separated from her husband in order to receive a parenting payment designed for cheat olympus slot singles.
Instead, the money went towards Cheasley’s “entitled lifestyle”.
She and her husband bought an investment property, and took their children on interstate and overseas holidays.
Court documents showed Cheasley’s husband earned $226,000 as the director of a roofing business.He has not been charged.
Cheasley pleaded guilty to dishonestly causing a loss for the Commonwealth, and also to giving false and misleading evidence to a commonwealth entity.
She is in remission from myeloid leukaemia.
Judge Dean found the COVID-19 pandemic would make her time in prison harder because of her compromised immune system.
He accepted Cheasley was remorseful and unlikely to reoffend.She is due to be released from prison on December 16.
After that, she will spend more than 15 months on a recognisance release order.
