Zariah Jae Samson, 33, appeared at the District Court in Dunedin yesterday after earlier pleading guilty to intentional damage, assault, aggravated refusing to give a blood specimen and two charges of theft.
Samson spent more than six years in prison for the manslaughter of her then-partner, 30-year-old Cory James Protos, in Christchurch in 2014.
The court heard yesterday that on July 9 last year, Samson entered a vehicle parked on a Dunedin street.
The owner of the car saw the defendant inside and approached her, but she got out of the car and attempted to walk away.
The vehicle owner chased her, asking her to come back and explain why she had been in the car.
Samson responded by punching the woman in the jaw before inflicting further blows and pulling her hair.
The woman then brought Samson to the ground and called for help, but the defendant broke free of her restraint, pushing her to the ground and placing her forearm over the victim’s throat.
Earlier, about 4am on June 5 last year, the defendant smashed a glass sliding door at a Christchurch house belonging to two pensioners.
She went into the house and made herself a cup of coffee, the court heard.
One of the occupants awoke to find Samson in the house, and she was later seen cleaning up the smashed glass.
Samson told officers she thought her mother was living in the house and had been given permission to let herself in.
Then on August 9 last year, Samson was driving her car in Dunedin when she lost control, swerved into the oncoming lane and mounted a kerb.
She drove the car home with a completely flat front tyre and when police arrested her she refused to partake in alcohol testing procedures.
Yesterday, Judge Hermann Retzlaff said the assault on the vehicle owner was "not insignificant" and noted it had to be broken up by a third party.
He said the pensioners whose home she broke into felt "extreme fear" about being the target of further incidents.
Judge Retzlaff sentenced Samson to 15 months’ imprisonment, but gave her leave to apply for home detention if she could find a suitable address.
The defendant was also disqualified from driving for 28 days, after which the alcohol interlock provisions would apply.
Samson was originally charged with murder after the 2014 killing, which was allegedly sparked because she believed Protos spread rumours about her.
She began a vicious assault, removed his bloodied clothing and bound his hands behind his back, before covering him with a blanket and punching and kicking him sporadically over the next four hours.
Later, she inflicted a superficial wound to Protos’ neck, and then proceeded to strangle him with a computer cord, wrapped around his neck three times.
She was released in 2020, but breached her parole conditions by drink-driving just a few months after she was released.
