Police Officer Jailed for Claiming Vacant Houses as Her Own Under ‘Squatter’s Rights’

An Australian police officer has been jailed over an elaborate scam that saw her claiming vacant houses under so-called “squatter’s rights” in order to boost her property portfolio.

Rosa Rossi, 57, used Victoria Police's internal database to look up homes that had been untenanted for a period of time and claimed them as her own, changing the locks and seizing them under the law of adverse possession: a principle whereby a person acquires legal ownership over property based on continuous occupation, without the permission of its actual legal owner.

Between 2016 and 2017, Sergeant Rossi claimed six vacant properties with a collective value of more than $2.6 million AUD. She subsequently leased out two of those and earned a total of $13,000 in rent, according to the ABC.

After changing the locks on the vacant properties—which were split between Melbourne and the rural town of Willaura—Rossi would contact the local council and submit a change of address form so that any correspondence for the real owner would be redirected to herself. 

Occasionally she even posed as the home owners—most of whom were interstate or out of the country—and at one point went to a local council in her police uniform to demand the details of someone who owned a house she wanted. After acquiring the owners’ details she contacted him, claiming she’d been called to the house following police reports of squatters, and said she’d secured the property and would maintain it for him.

Australian Associated Press reports that Rossi used false documents and her position as a sergeant to cover her tracks.

Following an Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC) investigation, Rossi pleaded guilty in May to obtaining property by deception and perjury offences, and was this week sentenced to four years and six months behind bars.

She is the first female member of Victoria’s police force to ever be jailed.

Judge Martine Marich said Rossi’s behaviour challenged the "very heart of property ownership".

"This is grave offending aggravated by your status as a serving, sworn and senior police officer," Marich declared. "These were the owner's private properties. They were worth significant sums. You violated the sanctity of those properties with your brazen acts."

Rossi will have to serve two years and four months of her sentence before she is eligible for parole.

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