Con victim may lose £60,000

A 78-year-old woman who was ripped off by a heartless conman who has since died, may find herself more than £60,000 worse off after an Appeal Court ruling.

Michele Rastelli, a financial advisor from Higher Heath, near Whitchurch, was jailed for three years at Shrewsbury Crown Court in 2006 after admitting seven counts of obtaining money transfers by deception over his exploitation of pensioner Maria Grant.

Rastelli, who died in September, aged 51, was also hit with an £82,000 confiscation order last April - but most of that was overturned on appeal yesterday.

After Rastelli's death his ex-wife, who has not been named, challenged the confiscation order on the grounds that it wrongly took account of various sums, including £56,000 he paid in contributions towards their joint mortgage.

The prosecution said the cash represented the criminal proceeds of his deception of Mrs Grant whom he had fleeced of her life savings - almost £130,000 - with promises that he would invest her cash profitably.

The deceptions took place after Rastelli was recommended to Mrs Grant, who lives in London, as a financial advisor.

Between May 2000 and April 2002 he invited the pensioner to make several investments which, by a series of intricate deceptions, went to bank accounts held by Rastelli.

The judge who imposed the confiscation order said he was satisfied Rastelli intended to use some of Mrs Grant's funds to "repay his obligation to his wife".

But lawyers for Rastelli's ex-wife today successfully challenged the confiscation order.

Mr Justice Royce, sitting with the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, and Mr Justice Beatson, said Rastelli's use of the funds towards the mortgage was a "cynical and disgraceful transfer of money".

But he ruled the cash had been paid under a binding obligation he owed to his ex-wife and not as "a gift" and it had therefore been wrongly included in the confiscation order.

With other deductions made by the court today, the amount of the confiscation order - originally £82,003 - was cut to just £15,829.