{"id":37983,"date":"2025-09-23T04:38:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T04:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/37983\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T04:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T04:38:07","slug":"hamilton-woman-mariah-gunters-17k-heist-that-funded-her-drug-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/37983\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamilton woman Mariah Gunter\u2019s $17k heist that funded her drug addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, she appeared in the Hamilton District Court<\/a> for sentencing on the burglary, along with thefts from Briscoes and Woolworths.<\/p>\n

Dishonesty spree <\/p>\n

The court heard that Gunter, a former employee of Woolworths Dinsdale<\/a>, stole an unspecified $1400 device from the supermarket on January 30, 2023.<\/p>\n

She grabbed the device from the supermarket\u2019s customer service desk, hid it between her hand and her purse, and left the store.<\/p>\n

Later that year, on July 1, Gunter was in the Rotorua Central Mall.<\/p>\n

There, she walked into Briscoes\u2019 electronics section and grabbed a Mygenie vacuum, worth $1199.99.<\/p>\n

She put the vacuum near the store exit and left. But three minutes later, she returned, grabbed it and took off. <\/p>\n

The next month, on August 26, Gunter broke into a house on Hukanui Rd in Hamilton.<\/p>\n

The victim left the house at 1.40pm.<\/p>\n

Minutes later, Gunter climbed through the bathroom window. <\/p>\n

She stole bangles, earrings, rings and a necklace, as well as an Arlo camera and other miscellaneous jewellery and household items totalling $17,052.<\/p>\n

Police found her fingerprints near the bathroom window.<\/p>\n

The following month, Gunter went through a traffic stop, and police found 0.63g of methamphetamine in her handbag.<\/p>\n

At her sentencing, police prosecutor Sergeant Stephen Leet sought reparation on behalf of the victims. <\/p>\n

He noted that the only item recovered in the burglary was the victim\u2019s jewellery box.<\/p>\n

\u2018Basically, you\u2019re an addict\u2019<\/p>\n

Referring to the presentence report, Judge Glen Marshall said Gunter\u2019s offending was driven by her drug addiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, you are an addict, and you have really been living in a climate of unhealthy relationships and activities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe offending was driven by the need to fuel your addiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a risk of health and other problems if you don\u2019t get that under control.\u201d<\/p>\n

On two charges each of theft over $1000 and failing to attend court, and one count each of procuring meth, burglary and breach of supervision, Judge Marshall took a starting point of two years and three months\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n

He then allowed discounts for her guilty plea and addiction before landing on 21 months.<\/p>\n

That sentence was then converted into nine months\u2019 home detention.<\/p>\n

Judge Marshall also ordered that she pay reparation of about $3000, which included a $500 insurance excess payment to the burglary victim. <\/p>\n

\u201cMake sure you don\u2019t become involved in burglaries or the like or dabble in drugs, again,\u201d he told her as she left the dock.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 10 years and has been a journalist for 21 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, she appeared in the Hamilton District Court for sentencing on the burglary, along with thefts from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[34842,579,138,3401,25812,34841,6288,29260,1364,34840,111,139,69,1361,1354],"class_list":["post-37983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-17k","tag-addiction","tag-business","tag-drug","tag-funded","tag-gunters","tag-hamilton","tag-heist","tag-her","tag-mariah","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-that","tag-woman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}