Guilty of money laundering

• Published date: 24 November 2021

The 47-year-old has been on trial in the Rotorua District Court for the past three weeks after pleading not guilty to the charges.

The jury found Paula Toleafoa was banking and spending large amounts of cash that was made from her husband’s methamphetamine dealing.

It was Paula Toleafoa’s defence she was a victim of domestic violence at the hands of Luther Toleafoa and she didn’t know he was a drug dealer. She tried to convince the jury she thought the large amounts of cash they had was from his house washing and house painting business and proceeds he made buying and selling cars.

The jury retired to consider their verdicts mid-afternoon on Friday. They continued deliberating on Monday and returned their verdicts just after 6pm that day.

The jury forewoman cried at times as she read the 69 verdicts.

The 61 guilty verdicts were not unanimous decisions with the forewoman saying they were majority verdicts with one juror disagreeing. The eight not guilty verdicts were unanimous.

Paula Toleafoa stood quietly listening to the verdicts, sobbed and shook her head as the guilty verdicts were read out.

During the course of the three-week trial, the jury heard evidence the Toleafoas were “living it up”.

She drove a Chrysler 300c and he drove a Hummer. They had two Harley Davidsons and “a number of” Range Rovers.

They lived mainly in Auckland but would travel to Rotorua and spend time at either the Regal Palms Hotel or Rydges Rotorua — which was where Luther Toleafoa was convicted of doing most of his methamphetamine dealing from.

The Crown was able to point to banking evidence that showed Paula Toleafoa was also in Rotorua during most of those stays and was making hundreds of cash deposits either via ATMs or in person at banks into the couple’s 31 personal or business bank accounts.

The Crown said Luther Toleafoa was selling the drugs and making the cash and Paula Toleafoa was the financial brains of the operation and was splitting the money and either banking it or spending it.

The Crown case produced evidence showing Paula Toleafoa banked nearly $170,000 in cash into the pair’s different bank accounts between 2015 and 2018 in hundreds of transactions.

During the three years in question, Paula Toleafoa also dealt in cash on a day-to-day basis and spent $196,000 in cash on shopping sprees as well as several overseas trips.

The Crown produced evidence she spent $10,000 in cash buying a property management business, about $23,000 at the Flight Centre buying holidays...