Former Green Party MP Golriz Ghahraman set to be sentenced for ...

Former Green Party standout turned New Zealand’s highest-profile shoplifter Golriz Ghahraman has already seen her political career disintegrate after admitting earlier this year to stealing nearly $9000 worth of retail items from high-end stores in Auckland and Wellington.

When the former MP returns to Auckland District Court this afternoon for sentencing, she’ll learn if her pre-politics career as a criminal defence lawyer is also a casualty of her retail crime spree.

The 43-year-old defendant, who hasn’t practised law since her high-profile ascension to Parliament in 2017, is expected to seek a discharge without conviction as she appears before Judge June Jelas. If the judge grants the request, finding the consequences of a conviction to be out of all proportion to her crimes, Ghahraman has a chance of reviving her legal career.

Without a discharge without conviction, she faces a sentence of up to seven years’ imprisonment. Although imprisonment is highly unlikely for a first-time offender such as Ghahraman, even a sentence as light as community service might mean “the death penalty” for her ability to earn a living as a barrister, retired University of Auckland law professor Bill Hodge has previously told the Herald.

Ghahraman’s political career went into a death spiral in January after it was revealed she was suspected of having stolen over $7800 worth of clothing during two trips to Scotties Boutique in Ponsonby in the week before Christmas last year. It was later revealed she was also suspected of pilfering $695 worth of clothing from Cre8tiveworx in Wellington last October and a $389 cardigan from Standard Issue in Newmarket during the same three-day period when she targeted the Ponsonby store.

The crimes were not the sort of well-executed heists one might expect from a career criminal, according to descriptions of the incidents outlined in court documents.

During the December 22 Newmarket theft, Ghahraman chatted with the store manager before stuffing the navy blue jumper from the display into a large tote bag as the manager’s attention was diverted, according to the agreed summary of facts for the case.

“The manager immediately noticed the cardigan was no longer on the table when Ms Ghahraman left the store,” court documents state. “Ms Ghahraman was the only customer in the store.”

Visiting the Ponsonby store with two associates a day earlier, the politician had stuffed a $1900 black Acne Studios single-breasted coat into her tote bag while in the changing room. Then, while continuing to browse, she stole a $160 Comme des Garcons wallet.

She brought two tote bags and a satchel with her when she next returned to the same store on December 23, leaving without paying for a $650 Bao Bao Issey Miyake Lucent bag, a $333 Two Squares dress, a $4500 Row Calanthe dress and a $290 Lemaire crepe tank top. The shop assistant was suspicious and asked to search her bags after following her out of the store.

“Ghahraman refused to show the store employee the contents of her bags,” court documents state. “She returned briefly inside the store with the employee where she offered an explanation, pointing to a dress hung inside a coat as the reason for the misunderstanding. The employee accepted this explanation and allowed her to leave.”

An associate of Ghahraman’s returned some of the items later that afternoon, but the politician wasn’t with her.

CCTV from inside Scotties Boutique, which would later be widely circulated as a media firestorm over the allegations brewed, left no question that it was the MP and that it had been her intention to steal.

She resigned from Parliament on January 16. Ghahraman, who until days earlier had been the Green Party’s justice spokeswoman, left it to party leaders to front media. But in a written statement she apologised for her “completely out of character” behaviour.

“I am not trying to excuse my actions, but I do want to explain them,” she said. “The mental health professional I see says my recent behaviour is consistent with recent events giving rise to extreme stress response, and relating to previously unrecognised trauma.”

She added: “People should, rightly, expect the highest standards of behaviour from their elected representatives. I fell short. I’m sorry. It’s not a behaviour I can explain because it’s not rational in any way, and after medical evaluation, I understand I’m not well.”

In her 2020 memoir, Pull No Punches, Ghahraman talked openly about having seen a psychologist for years to deal with anxiety even as her legal and then political careers flourished.

Her political profile was high from the start, noted as New Zealand’s first refugee to be sworn in as an MP when her eighth spot on the party list in 2017 allowed her a seat in Parliament after the special votes were tallied.

Profiles often focused on her history as a human rights lawyer, having worked with United Nations war crimes tribunals after obtaining a master’s degree at Oxford University. But since her return to New Zealand in 2012, she had focused largely on criminal defence work in South Auckland, which she often described as another form of human rights work.

She spent four years on the executive committee of the New Zealand Criminal Bar Association before joining Parliament. She told the Herald in 2017 that she hoped her time as a defence lawyer - helping clients find the rehabilitative resources they needed - would inform the way she approached her new political career.

She explained: “How we treat everyone, including the delinquents, that’s the making of us.”

Ghahraman pleaded guilty to all four shoplifting charges during her first court appearance in March.

The sentencing hearing is scheduled to begin at 2.15pm.

Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.