‘Bashed’ woman swindles $700k from dad
Written by admin on October 14, 2024
A woman who made headlines after she was brutally bashed while pregnant in a suburban street mugging has been found guilty of swindling $700,000 from her elderly father.
Natalie Hotait, 33, left the nation shocked in 2016 after a horrific alleged robbery of her handbag in Sydney’s west which left the mother badly injured.
Ms Hotait appeared on several network news channels with bruises across her face and a split eyelid as she told of her ordeal, telling how she feared during the attack she would lose her unborn baby.
Eight years on, Ms Hotait has taken on the role of thief herself – appearing in Parramatta District Court last week after stealing $700,000 from her own father in April of 2020.
According to court documents obtained by news.com.au, Ms Hotait’s father Lewis Buhagiar asked his daughter for help with online banking after receiving $650,000 from his deceased parents’ estate.
Ms Hotait helped him set up a Netbank app on his phone, which she later used to transfer the money out of his account, and into her husband Michael’s account.
The pair and Mr Buhagiar lived together at the time in a house in Greystanes.
Court documents state that before the transaction, Mr Hotait had rung the Commonwealth Bank and pretended to be Mr Buhagiar to increase his transfer limits.
“The victim did not authorise any of these transfers,” the documents state.
Mr Hotait used more than $250,000 of the money to place bets via his TAB account and deposited $202,000 from the funds into a Coinspot cryptocurrency account.
Mr Hotait also pretended to be Mr Buhagiar on a second occasion to access his superannuation account, sending himself $10,000 from the fund.
Mr Buhagiar received a text from his fund saying the transaction was “being processed”, however, Ms Hotait told her father the text was “a fraud” and to delete the message.
The pair were finally caught when Mr Buhagiar went into a Commonwealth Bank branch to check his bank accounts in July 2020.
He saw the fraudulent transactions and reported them to Merrylands Police Station.
“By the time the victim returned home that day both Natalie and Michael had moved out,” court documents state.
The pair were arrested and both were charged with two counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception.
Police also searched their new home at Westmead, seizing a $25,000 jetski, a $4800 treadmill, three gold bullion bars, $132,000 in cash and about $20,000 worth of jewellery.
They originally said Mr Buhagiar had gifted them the money to help them start a courier business.
A police investigation showed Mr Hotait’s taxable income for the year 2019-2020 was about $36,000, while Ms Hotait’s was about $32,000.
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They have since admitted to the charges.
They will both be sentenced on November 12.
Is there a case you think we should be following? Email our reporter at sarah.keoghan@news.com.au
