AN IRISHMAN who went on a six- week spending spree with fraudulently obtained credit card details has been convicted in Australia, in a case compared to the film The Hangover.
Michael Hegarty, from Co Meath, used credit card numbers bought for $9 (€7) each online and spent an estimated $30,000 to $35,000 between October and December last year.
Hegarty (27) was accompanied by two younger men, who posed as the children of rich parents while enjoying their spending spree.
Melbourne’s magistrates court heard Hegarty, Laurence Pawlaczyk (19) and Daniel Pike (20) stayed at five-star hotels, ate in fine restaurants, hired limousines and flew interstate with Qantas.
The court heard Pawlaczyk and Pike, who were drug abusers, had “corrupted” Hegarty. Magistrate Lance Martin heard the trio initially tested whether their fraud would work by making donations to the Red Cross.
Constable Roy Brandi told the court that before the gang had stayed at the luxury Palozzo Versace hotel on Queensland’s Gold Coast. Later, in Surfers Paradise, the group ran amok through the Hilton hotel foyer while wearing balaclavas. Subsequent trips included one to the Hamilton Island resort, from which they were removed after damaging a golf buggy while drunk.
All three pleaded guilty to multiple counts of deception.
Hegarty’s solicitor Katherine Rolfe said she did not want to “make light of the situation, but you may or not be familiar with the film The Hangover. Well, this is the case of the hangover gone wrong, and Mr Hegarty has borne the brunt of that.”
Pawlaczyk has been sentenced to the 103 days he has served on remand, a 12-month bond and 200 hours of community work.
Hegarty and Pike will be sentenced next week.
