Two and a half months behind bars for Victorian mother who defrauded Centrelink to help fund her family’s holidays.
Jade Cheasley, 31, lied so that between March 2013 and May 2018 she could collect $102,086 in parenting compensation to which she was not entitled.
On Friday, she was sentenced in Victoria’s County Court for a period of 18 months.
Judge Mark Dean ordered Cheasley to complete two-and-a-half months prior to a court order to be released into the community.
In Craigieburn, north of Melbourne, Cheasley lived with her husband and their three children.
But she told Centrelink she was separated from her husband in order to receive a parenting payment designed for singles.
The money went instead into the “entitled lifestyle” of Cheasley.’
She and her husband bought an investment property, overseas holidays with their children.
Court records revealed that Cheasley ‘s husband received $226,000 as a roofing company owner.
He wasn’t charged.
Cheasley pleaded guilty to dishonestly causing the Commonwealth to lose, and also to supplying a Commonwealth agency with false and misleading evidence.
She is in remission from myeloid leukaemia.
Because of her compromised immune system, Judge Dean found the COVID-19 pandemic would make her time in prison more difficult.
Cheasley was remorseful and unlikely to reoffend, he admitted.
On December 16, she is due to be released from jail.