The blackmailing mistress of a Dunedin financial fraudster will remain behind bars after the New Zealand Parole Board found she remains an undue risk to the community.
Sharleen Louise Lynch (36) will remain in jail until at least next year after appearing before the parole board by audio-visual link last week.
Lynch and her former lover, Mark Shayne Jory, defrauded insurance companies of more than $300,000.
Jory, a former financial and insurance adviser, hatched the plan to defraud seven insurance companies by applying for false insurance policies and collecting the commissions.
More than $300,000 was received in commission for 122 fake policy applications between 2010 and 2013.Jory paid $187,036 to Lynch to stop her disclosing their affair to Jory’s family and colleagues.
The pair were jailed in August last year.
Lynch was jailed for four years on one count of blackmail and seven of fraudulently using a document, relating to the insurance fraud.
Jory was jailed for two years and three months after being jointly convicted of the seven counts of fraud and two further counts of forgery for taking money from his wife’s retirement fund and to remortgage the family home.
Jory was released from the Otago Corrections Facility in December and remains on parole.
Lynch was appearing before the parole board for the first time.
"Ms Lynch told the board that in her view the key driver for her offending was her gambling addiction," it said.
"She is of the view that she has addressed that while she has been in prison."
Lynch had been attending a rehabilitative programme, which would conclude in December, and been diagnosed with depression and was on medication for the illness.
"Ms Lynch expressed remorse for the offending and when the time is right hopes to be able to complete the restorative justice process, both with the male victim of her offending and with his wife," the board’s decision said.
"There is a reference in the report to Ms Lynch not being able to sustain living in self-care due to conflict with other inmates. Ms Lynch told the board that she was placed in self-care a few days after she was sentenced and had not yet got her head around the fact that she had been sentenced to four years’ imprisonment. She struggled with this and with the youth of the other occupants of the house," the board’s decision said.
Lynch remained "an undue risk to the safety of the community" and it was "clear there are other aspects of her offending that she needs to address", the board said.
Parole was declined and she would next appear before the board next September.