{"id":596256,"date":"2026-09-10T17:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T17:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/596256\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T17:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T17:12:10","slug":"hamilton-man-jacob-ngarewa-charged-over-alleged-40k-headstone-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/596256\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamilton man Jacob Ngarewa charged over alleged $40k \u2018headstone scam\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alleged losses total $42,009.02, ranging from $900 to $5210.<\/p>\n

He appeared in Hamilton District Court<\/a> for the third time last month when, through his lawyer Angela Smith, he pleaded not guilty to all charges.<\/p>\n

Smith told Judge Nicola Grimes that she had just received \u201cthousands\u201d of pages of disclosure from police and needed time to go through it.<\/p>\n

Ngarewa, with supporters alongside him in court, was remanded on bail to an \u014ctorohanga property to reappear in January.<\/p>\n

Paeroa woman Kawetanga Murray helped bring together complainants, ranging from solo mums who lost babies, kaumatua, rangatahi\/young people, to others living in Australia.<\/p>\n

She was unaware Ngarewa had been charged until contacted by NZME.<\/p>\n

She was unsure if one of the charges related to her alleged experience.<\/p>\n

Murray said she, like other complainants, first saw Ngarewa\u2019s company advertised on Facebook.<\/p>\n

She messaged him and said he had good communication, including video calls and photos of headstones, but alleged nothing eventuated.<\/p>\n

Murray claimed she paid him in full for headstones for her mother and sister but allegedly didn\u2019t receive either, leaving them heartbroken and forcing them to cancel their unveiling.<\/p>\n

She was pleased that he had been put before the court.<\/p>\n

Belinda Feek is an Open Justice reporter based in Waikato. She has worked at NZME for 11 years and has been a journalist for 22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alleged losses total $42,009.02, ranging from $900 to $5210. He appeared in Hamilton District Court for the third…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":596257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[75017,94422,1554,13239,1873,1656,9881,6288,114425,54173,5158,130,293870,111,139,293868,293869,69,1523,9769,1461,213,131,96121],"class_list":["post-596256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-75017","tag-40k","tag-alleged","tag-charged","tag-charges","tag-company","tag-facing","tag-hamilton","tag-headstone","tag-jacob","tag-man","tag-more","tag-multitude","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-ngarewa","tag-nowdefunct","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-owners","tag-scam","tag-sports","tag-than","tag-totalling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596256","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=596256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/596257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}