Hairdresser jailed for defrauding 80-year-old

A 29-year-old hairdresser from the Jönköping area in southern Sweden has been sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay damages to an elderly client, after bamboozling her out of large sums of money.

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“The aggravated fraud amounted to significant sums and has meant particularly serious damage to the old woman," the court wrote in the verdict, according to Sveriges Radio (SR).

The hairdresser met her client for the first time in 2008, but didn’t start pressuring her for money until 2010.

In order to get several pay-outs from her client, the hairdresser told the old woman on separate occasions that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, that her partner had died, and that she had been evicted from her apartment.

The 80-year-old woman felt sorry for her hairdresser and kept lending her money to deal with her various hardships, a sum that amounted to some 1.6 million kronor ($241,000) over four years.

As evidence for the crime, the prosecutor presented several begging letters from the 29-year-old to the old woman as well as documents proving the bank transactions.

The court found no evidence that the hairdresser ever intended to pay back any of the money, which mainly went to finance the heavy drug addiction of a man she was romantically involved with and who was living with her at the time, reported local paper Jönköpings Nytt.

The hairdresser admitted during the trial to defrauding the old woman.

The court sentenced her on Wednesday to 18 months in prison and ordered her to pay back the money she had taken from the elderly client.