A convicted former Far South Coast scam artist has been placed on a two-year community corrections order and fined $1500 after pleading guilty to trading three fake bars of gold for a Norco electric mountain bike.
Batemans Bay Local Court has heard David Robert Meade committed the crime in 2023 in an effort to pay off a substantial debt to drug dealers.
Court documents state Mead contacted a man selling the bike for $7,500 on Facebook Marketplace and asked to trade it for three gold bullions.
He went to the man’s house in Batemans Bay the next day.
The victim contacted police late last year after media reports on other gold scam offences by Meade.
Mead’s lawyer said in her sentencing submissions her client was addicted to methamphetamine and opioids at the time of the offence.
The court had been told Meade is currently on parole for other convictions involving a $250,000 gold scam on Facebook Marketplace where he was sentenced to a maximum three years jail.
Judge Doug Dick told Meade “the man I’m looking at today is not the same desperate man I was looking at before.”
The 40-year-old will have to follow the supervision of Community Corrections in Queanbeyan and pay the victim $7500 compensation.
