Claudia Gelonese once gleefully posed for the cameras outside Luna Park as part of her elaborate wedding, partially funded by the Canberra childcare centre she was defrauding.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
She was also pictured grinning alongside Malcolm Turnbull when the then-prime minister's government overhauled childcare subsidies in 2017.
But the 26-year-old was in no mood for happy snaps on Wednesday, when she hid between a wall and a hedge opposite the ACT courts while using a piece of paper to shield her face from the media.
After spending a month behind bars, Gelonese was granted bail in the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday, having launched an appeal against what she will argue was a "manifestly excessive" prison sentence imposed by Acting Chief Magistrate Glenn Theakston.
In January, Mr Theakston jailed Gelonese for seven months, with the sentence to be suspended after four months behind bars, after she pleaded guilty to two fraud charges and admitted to breaching a good behaviour order.
Gelonese, who had moved to Sydney before being locked up, is required to live at her mother's home in Lyneham while on bail.
Agreed facts tendered to the ACT Magistrates Court at Gelonese's sentencing last month show that in May 2018, she was promoted to director at a Gungahlin childcare centre.
The centre owner confronted Gelonese on several occasions in the months that followed about her unauthorised use of a company debit card.
In July 2018, he asked Gelonese to provide receipts for transactions she said were for childcare expenses, but she did not provide them.
The following month, the owner asked Gelonese to explain 38 transactions totalling $3397.44. A number of these, including a $670 bill for invitations, related to her wedding expenses.
Gelonese agreed she had been using the card for personal expenses, and told the owner she would pay the money back.
Ten days later, another payment of $2970, relating to wedding expenses, appeared on the company card.
During August 2018, the centre owner also discovered that Gelonese had been emailing clients requesting payments, and providing her personal bank account details instead of the centre's.
Gelonese agreed during a police interview that she had emailed six parents with her personal bank account details, and that five of them had made payments totalling $2401.14.
At Gelonese's sentencing, Mr Theakston said the reason given for her offending - that she wanted to pay for her wedding - "could simply not be justified".
"What I see before me is someone who cannot be trusted, someone who is not reliable and someone who is very quick to impose upon an employer," Mr Theakston said.
Gelonese declined to comment as she left court on Wednesday, saying "seriously?", before telling journalists: "Leave me alone. Goodness."
Her appeal is scheduled to return to court in March.
