{"id":42688,"date":"2025-09-25T13:47:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T13:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/42688\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T13:47:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T13:47:15","slug":"wanaka-woman-accused-of-fake-cancer-scam-facing-sexual-assault-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/42688\/","title":{"rendered":"W\u0101naka woman accused of fake cancer scam facing sexual assault charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"media-element img-responsive file-default\" data-delta=\"2\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/vehicle_1.jpg\" width=\"4032\" height=\"3024\" alt=\"The couple's spending included high end cars. Photo: NZ Police\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The couple&#8217;s spending included high end cars. Photo: NZ Police<\/p>\n<p>A W\u0101naka woman accused of being part of a million-dollar fraud through\u00a0false cancer claims\u00a0is now also facing a charge of sexual assault.<\/p>\n<p>Sepiuta Vave, 38, and her husband Andrew Jones, 28, were charged with defrauding more than a dozen family, friends and associates, claiming the money was for treatment that was not needed.<\/p>\n<p>The pair appeared by audio-visual link at the Christchurch District Court on Thursday, where it was revealed Vave was facing a new charge of unlawful sexual connection.<\/p>\n<p>They have entered not guilty pleas and remain in custody.<\/p>\n<p>A trial date has been set for September 2026.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/news\/national\/574108\/wanaka-woman-charged-with-fake-cancer-scam-also-faces-sexual-assault-charge\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\"><\/p>\n<p>    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"media-element img-responsive file-default\" data-delta=\"1\" typeof=\"foaf:Image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/rnz_banner_rs_060825.jpg\" width=\"930\" height=\"130\" alt=\"\"\/>  <\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The couple&#8217;s spending included high end cars. Photo: NZ Police A W\u0101naka woman accused of being part of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-42688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42688","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=42688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}