R v Sharma

[2025] NZHC 1052

IN THE HIGH COURT OF NEW ZEALAND CHRISTCHURCH REGISTRY

I TE KŌTI MATUA O AOTEAROA ŌTAUTAHI ROHE

CRI-2023-009-003974

[2025] NZHC 1052

THE KING

v

NEHA SHARMA

Hearing:	5 May 2025
Appearances:	K South and J G Nelson for Crown J R Rapley KC for Defendant
Sentencing notes:	5 May 2025

SENTENCING NOTES OF EATON J

R v SHARMA [2025] NZHC 1052 [5 May 2025]

Introduction

[1]    Mrs Neha Sharma, you appear for sentence today having pleaded guilty to representative charges of obtaining by deception,1 money laundering,2 and forgery.3 Your guilty pleas were entered promptly following a sentence indication I gave on  11 March 2025.

[2]    The sentence indication notes will be attached to, and form part of, these remarks.4 I will not repeat all of what I then said. Rather, I will summarise the matters I think are essential to the sentence I will impose, and I will discuss the further material that has been filed on your behalf since the sentence indication.

Background facts

[3]    I will only briefly summarise the facts of your offending. They are fully set out in the prosecution summary of facts. You provided  forged  references  to  Oranga Tamariki (OT) in order to secure employment. Your application for employment was successful and you commenced work at OT on 4 February 2021. You resigned on 3 November 2022, when the bubble burst in relation to your deceitful conduct within your employment. Just days later you used a forged reference to secure employment at Waka Kotahi.

[4]    While working in a senior position at OT you failed to declare a conflict of interest. Five months into that employment you arranged for your husband’s company, Divine Connection, to be set up within the OT systems as a contractor approved to undertake maintenance work on OT’s properties. You had a duty to advise OT of the conflict of interest. You did not do so. Indeed, you went so far as to deceive your employer, including by pretending you were not married to your husband when the two of you were working together at a work site.

[5]    During the course of  your  employment,  203  jobs  were  assigned  to  Divine Connection. Over 15 months, you authorised 326 invoices that were submitted

1      Crimes Act 1961, s 240(1)(a) and(2)(b); maximum penalty seven years’ imprisonment.

2      Section 243(2); maximum penalty seven years’ imprisonment.

3      Section 257(1)(b) and/or (c); maximum penalty: ten years’ imprisonment.

4      R v Sharma [2025] NZHC 480.

by that company for payment and OT made 103 payments on those invoices totalling

$2,144,615.56. Of this, $688,339.08 was paid to third parties for expenses for work completed for OT. On occasions, the invoice prices were inflated.

[6]    When concerns were raised by OT, you resigned. The registered office and director of Divine Connection were promptly changed. The brazen nature of your fraudulent conduct is reflected by your almost immediate use of a forged reference to then secure new employment.

[7]    OT carried out an internal investigation. Not surprisingly it took some time to unravel your  fraudulent  behaviour.  A  complaint  was  then  referred  to  the Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

[8]    On 30 March 2023, search warrants were executed by the SFO at your house. That set in train the money laundering offending that you now admit. Immediately following the search warrant, your husband inquired about selling one of your properties. In less than two weeks, that property was listed for sale. On 11 April 2023, that is less than two weeks after the warrants, you and your husband booked one-way tickets to India. Between 11 and 12 April 2023 you transferred a total of $795,000 to a bank account held in your husband’s name. Between 12 April and 4 May 2023, a total of $791,500 was transferred from that account to seven bank accounts associated with your family in India or to accounts held jointly by you and your husband. Those funds were removed from New Zealand to conceal or disguise the location, ownership, or any interest you had in those funds. The sum that was laundered represents moneys received from OT in relation to invoices submitted by Divine Connection being the proceeds of the deception offending.

Pre-sentence report

[9]    I now have a pre-sentence report that tells me that you are a 36-year-old woman. You have no previous convictions. The report writer assesses you as being a medium risk of committing further dishonesty offences. Your self-entitlement and attitudes are the identified causative features of your offending. While you have taken some responsibility for your offending, you reported that it was driven by a lack of consequential thinking said to follow the delivery of your stillborn son in

September 2021. You told the report writer that your offending was not premeditated and that your decision-making ability at the time had been affected by ‘baby brain’.

[10]   You claim that you informed your OT managers of the conflict of interest albeit not in writing. You say you transferred funds to your family in India to provide financial support and you expressed remorse relating to the impact on your family, having had their bank accounts frozen for an extended period.

[11]   But you do not express remorse to OT. You do not express remorse to the New Zealand public, whose funds you took for yourself and for your family. You have not offered to pay reparation.

Purposes and principles of sentencing

[12]   I have regard to the general principles and purposes of the Sentencing Act 2002 (the Act). To my mind, the key purposes are to hold you accountable for the harm you have caused, to promote in you a sense of responsibility and to both denounce your deceitful conduct and deter you and others who might be minded to commit the same or similar offences. Providing reparation for the losses you have inflicted is another important purpose in sentencing.

Starting point

[13]   I refer to and adopt my summary within the sentence indication as regards the aggravating factors of your offending. They are the extent of the loss and harm resulting from your offending, the personal gain to you in the vicinity of $1.4 million, the very high level of abuse of trust, which I consider to significantly aggravate your offending, and both the premeditation and duration of your offending.

[14]   I have reviewed a number of authorities as I have referenced in the sentence indication. What is clear is that offenders who engage in dishonest conduct that is both planned and prolonged, and intended to achieve significant personal gains, can expect a strong element of deterrence in the sentence that is fixed by the Court. If the defalcation is major, imprisonment will be appropriate.

[15]    As regards the appropriate starting point for your offending, I assess the culpability of your offending as falling between the cases of Rose v R5 and Love v R.6 I did not discuss the details of those cases then, I will do so now.

[16]   Mr Rose was convicted at trial of nine representative charges of obtaining by deception. He had been employed by Mighty River and his employment contract required him to disclose activity or association that could be considered a conflict of interest with his role. He made no disclosure of his connections to supply companies and, without the knowledge of his employer, he funnelled business to those companies for his personal benefit. Over a three-year period 174 payments totalling $2.2 million were made to the supply companies with which Mr Rose had an association. The Court of Appeal confirmed the starting point of three years and eight months’ imprisonment and described the offending as premeditated and sophisticated, allowing Mr Rose to exploit deficiencies in his employer’s processes and systems for his personal gain. That offending was over a three-year period, it was deliberate and repetitive and, in my view, similar to your offending.

[17]   Dr Love was convicted at a judge-alone trial on one charge of obtaining property by deception. He was the chairman of the Wellington Tenths Trust (the Trust) and was held in extremely high regard. He was considered a leader of the trustees. In breach of his duties to the Trust, he fraudulently obtained $1.5 million which he used to reduce his mortgage liability, creating equity in his property. His offending not only had financial consequences for the Trust but caused it reputational damage and triggered a substantial rift between fractions of beneficiaries.  A starting point of  four years and nine  months’  imprisonment  was  adopted  and  on  appeal  the  Court of Appeal described that as generous, observing that a starting point could otherwise have been five and a half years.

[18]   At your sentence indication Mrs Sharma, I  provided  a  starting  point  of four years’ imprisonment for the obtaining by deception, being at the lower end of the range that was proposed by Ms South, on behalf of the SFO. I confirm that starting point for that lead offending.

5      Rose v R [2017] NZCA 335.

6      Love v R [2017] NZCA 265.

[19]   I also confirm the nine-month uplift that I adopted for the money laundering. It was a significant sum—$791,500. It involved a degree of sophistication involving the transfer, with haste, of funds to seven different bank accounts of family members in India. I have no doubt your motive was to conceal the moneys that you had obtained through your deceptive offending and was all part of a plan to flee New Zealand with the fruits of your offending. I adopt the analysis as regards the relevant authorities from the sentence indication.7

[20]   Finally, as regards the forgery, I confirm an uplift on the starting point I have settled for both the obtaining by deception and money laundering, of six months’ imprisonment. Again, I adopt the review of relevant authorities as set out in the sentence indication.8

[21]   The overall starting point I adopt for your offending is one of five years and three months’ imprisonment.

Mitigating factors

[22]   As I have acknowledged, you are entitled to deductions from that starting point to reflect your guilty pleas, to reflect your previous good character and to reflect the consequences of imprisonment for your very young children.

Guilty plea

[23]   I indicated an allowance of 20 per cent to reflect your guilty pleas. That higher level  deduction,  in  part,  reflects  the   Crown   concession   that   your   counsel, Mr Rapley KC, who was comparatively recently briefed to represent you, had front-footed his review of the evidence and charges leading to a resolution short of trial. I consider that deduction of 20 per cent to be appropriate.9

7      R v Sharma, above n 4, at [37]–[38].

8 At [40].

9      At [55]–[56].

Previous good character

[24]   As regards previous good character, at the sentence indication your counsel provided a number of character references and made a submission that a 15 per cent deduction ought to be available to reflect your previous good character. It was not clear to me reading those references whether your referees were aware of the fact you were facing fraud charges and that you were proposing to plead guilty to those charges. I indicated that a deduction of up to 10 per cent for previous good character might be available but that the final deduction could be only confirmed once and if the referees were given the opportunity to confirm whether they would stand by their references having been enlightened as to your offending and your admissions.

[25]   Mr Rapley has now refiled references and filed one new reference. The refiled references have been edited to incorporate reference to your charges and to your guilty pleas. None of the referees waiver from their original views as regards your good character, and in particular as to your honesty.

[26]   Within the references, you are described by your university professors as bright, positive, and hard-working. Within your spiritual group, you took on the role of secretary and later, a role in the national committee. Those were voluntary roles and made you a signatory to the group’s bank accounts. No concern is expressed by any of the members of your spiritual group as regarding your integrity in carrying those roles. I am told that you have tutored friends’ children and you have both offered and provided emotional and other support to friends and members of the spiritual group during their times of crisis. And you have done so notwithstanding the crises you were personally facing alongside Mr Sharma. You are described as a dedicated mother, wife and friend. You are described as a compassionate, generous and honest person.

[27]   It is very clear to me, Mrs Sharma, that you are held in very, very high regard by those within your spiritual group. They describe this offending behaviour as being highly out of character for you. But the language that they use to me is telling. One records you describing your actions as “not wise”. At least two refer to your past

“mistakes” and one expresses the view that “one mistake doesn’t make a person bad”. Another refers to the criminal prosecution as an ongoing legal challenge.

[28]   The irony is that your supporters believe they have a deep connection to you but appear to be quite unconcerned that from early 2021 through until mid-2023 you were engaged in ongoing and sustained acts of dishonesty.

[29]   One says that learning that you admit conducting serious fraud, money laundering and forgery “adds little information for me”. Another tells me she will believe in you no matter what. It is clear you have made a very significant impression on those within your group. I am left with a strong sense that those close to you have buried their heads in the sand and failed to appreciate the seriousness of your offending and the very serious character flaw it reveals.

[30]   I refer particularly to the reference of Mr Narang, a member of your spiritual group. He, like the others, says knowledge of the charges and your guilty pleas does not change his opinion that you are a person of, in his wording “unwavering integrity”. He describes himself as struck by your commitment to your professional career. He speaks highly of your leadership skills referring particularly to what he believes is your exceptional organisational skills that set you apart from others in your field.

[31]   Mrs Sharma, you are, it is very clear to me, an intelligent woman. It must be readily apparent to you that a number of your referees have a very distorted view as to your integrity and particularly your integrity within your professional work. The reality that sets you apart from others in your field is your dishonesty.

[32]   What I do accept is that although naïve, the views that your supporters express are genuinely held. You are most fortunate to have the love and support of those within your spiritual group. That support will be important to your reintegration into the community following completion of your sentence. But I doubt that support is going to promote your rehabilitation given your referees seem to have little or no appreciation of the seriousness of your offending.

[33]   I am concerned, in terms of your rehabilitation, that surrounding yourself by persons like your referees who clearly look up to you and are convinced you are both honest and trustworthy has proven to be an obstacle to your accepting responsibility and facing up to your offending and what it says about you. The overall tenor of the references is that your referees are somewhat spellbound by your work within your spiritual group, and as I have said to your counsel this morning, limits the weight that I can attach to their general assessment of your character. You need to be frank with yourself, Ms Sharma, no matter what your friends say, your offending is indicative of somebody who is dishonest, manipulative, and calculating.

[34]   I had indicated a credit of up to ten per cent for previous good character. I have assessed the evidence of previous good character to be weaker than I anticipated it would be. I fix the credit for previous good character as 7.5 per cent.

Parental incarceration

[35]   I indicated that a deduction of 15 per cent was available to reflect the consequences of your incarceration on your two very young children. I refer to and adopt the discussion of the cases as I set out in the sentence indication.10

[36]   When you entered your guilty pleas, you did not apply for bail. That was because an application to serve a sentence at the Mothers with Babies Unit (MBU) at Christchurch Women’s Prison can only be made from within custody. You have now been accepted into the MBU and you are settled there with your youngest child. I am pleased for both of you that that has happened.

I had indicated that depending on the sentence of your husband and whether he remains in the community to take care of your older daughter, there may be some further impact for your sentence. But the pre-sentence report tells me that your sister is currently caring for your eldest daughter in India. Until that arrangement changes or until the prosecution against your husband is determined, the ultimate childcare arrangements for your older child cannot be defined. In those circumstances, I cannot make a further deduction.

10     At [47]–[53].

[37]   I do however acknowledge, Mrs Sharma, that the separation from your older child will cause both you and the child anguish. But that is the inevitable and very sad consequence of your offending. I confirm the 15 per cent deduction for parent incarceration.

Remorse

[38]   Sensibly, Mr Rapley, on your behalf, does not propose that a credit be allowed for remorse. I am far from persuaded you are indeed remorseful for your offending. Your comments to the pre-sentence report writer indicate that you have some work to do in acknowledging responsibility for this offending.

Reparation

[39]   I observe that you have not made an offer of reparation. By memorandum dated 1 May 2025, the prosecutor makes application for reparation order to recover the $185,000 OT estimate to be their losses associated with the investigation into your offending, and a further sum in excess of $1.4 million, being the quantified personal benefit to you and your husband of your offending.

[40]   Mr Rapley, submits that the question of reparation is best left to be determined in the context of the proceedings brought under the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009. He submits that there are uncertainties that need to be explored in relation to the quantum of any reparation, pointing out that the OT investigation costs are estimates and there are issues to do with the personal benefit you achieved that need to be refined and discussed in the context of the civil proceedings.

[41]   The Court of Appeal in Rose considered the question of a reparation order in a case where the appellant’s assets are the subject of restraining orders. This complicates matters because your ability to make reparation must be constrained by the restraining orders that are in place. In Rose the Court ultimately considered it to be more appropriate that reparation be dealt with in the context of the civil proceedings.

[42]Ms South acknowledges that may be the preferable outcome in this case.

[43]   I agree with both counsel that on the material I presently have it is not realistic that I make reparation orders. It is preferable that issue is determined in the civil proceedings.

Result

[44]Mrs Sharma, can you please stand.

[45]   From a starting point of five years and three months’ imprisonment, I allow total allowances of 42.5 per cent made up of 20 per cent  credit for guilty pleas,     15 per cent for parental incarceration and 7.5 per cent to reflect your previous good character. That leads to an end sentence, rounded down, of three years’ imprisonment.

[46]   On the representative charge of obtaining by deception, you are sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.

[47]   On the representative charge of  money  laundering,  you  are  sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment.

[48]   On the representative charge of forgery, you are sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment.

[49]Each sentence is to be served concurrently.

[50]Mrs Sharma, you may stand down.

...................................................

Eaton J

Solicitors:
Crown Solicitors, Christchurch

Counsel:
J R Rapley KC, Christchurch

Copy to:

Serious Fraud Office, Auckland