Friday, 6 January, 2023
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Footy greats train
Carol calls time
Model Flyers grounded
48-page liftout Property Guide
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INSIDE
PR OP ER TY
Hello 2023 Locals and visitors marked their New Year celebrations with lavish dinners, private parties and music events across the shire and the Noosa River provided the backdrop for many New Year’s Eve celebrations. Among the celebrations were those at Noosa Harbour Wine Bar where The Sandflys played to a packed crowd of people dancing and enjoying the music before watching a spectacular display of fireworks. Read more page 4
Gieslea Hamacher and Ray Ivory welcome in the New Year in style.
Behind the fraud By Phil Jarratt
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Less than a week before Christmas, Jodi Nuske should have been at home planning the festivities with her family: instead the Noosaville mum was being led out of Maroochydore District Court to begin a seven-year jail sentence after being found guilty of defrauding her former employer, Noosa’s high-end beachfront restaurant Bistro C, of more than $600,000. The verdict, delivered after less than two hours’ deliberation, brought to an end the 10day trial and more than three years of sensational claims and counter-claims since Nuske, now 44, was first charged with “stealing as a
servant” more than $1 million in July 2019 following a two-year investigation by Noosa detectives. While the size of the fraud was chipped back as the case went through two trials, from an initial $1 million to $769,000 and finally to just under $613,000, the owners of the restaurant, the Banks family, have claimed that the amount stolen from them over more than a decade was much higher. The length of the sentence – half the maximum 14 years – must have been a bitter blow for a mother of young children, although Nuske showed no emotion as it was handed down. The court as yet has made no decision on parole eligibility but Nuske should auto-
matically be paroled after three-and-a-half years, unless Judge Gary Long finds otherwise. Known to her high school friends as a smart, vibrant and fun-loving companion, and to her early employers (including over her first several at Bistro C) as honest and hard-working, Jodi Nuske took a wrong turn somewhere. How? Why? Born Jodi Louise Cashmore in Victoria in January 1978, Jodi and her older sister grew up with a strong work ethic implanted by father John, who owned a successful plumbing business servicing Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs, and mother Ann, who had a keen
eye for fashion retail. The Cashmores had family connections in Noosa and holidayed here frequently with cousins, aunts and uncles in the early ‘90s as Jodi entered her teens. During those vacations, Jodi made a network of friends through a cousin, so when the Cashmores sold the plumbing business and made a permanent move to Noosa, she was among friends when she enrolled at Noosa District High for the final years of her schooling. According to some of those friends, Jodi was academically smart but more interested in having fun than topping the class. Continued page 6