A failed Australian crypto trader who was sentenced to 25 years in prison for murdering his mother has been given less than two days by the country’s Court of Appeals to prove he didn’t kill her to get his hands on a $1.2 million insurance payout.
Andre Rebelo was found guilty in December 2024 of the 2020 killing of his mother Colleen Rebelo. A court found that he had killed her and staged her body to make her death look like natural causes.
The West Australian reports that from September 16, Rebelo’s lawyers will have around a day and a half to convince the court of Rebelo’s claim that his mother died from a cardiac episode caused by a genetic mutation.
They will also argue that he couldn’t have been present due to the timings of her shower’s hot water system.
Rebelo forged mother’s will before murder
Rebelo and his social media influencer girlfriend, Grace Piscopo, reportedly lived a lavish lifestyle and Rebelo claimed that he’d made more than $500,000 trading cryptocurrencies.
However, prosecutors say this was a lie and the couple actually possessed over $100,000 worth of debt.
Colleen Rebelo was found dead in the shower of her home. Despite the death not initially being treated as suspicious, her insurance provider submitted a fraud report two years later.
It was subsequently discovered that her son had taken out three life insurance policies in her name days before her death, forged her will, and tried to cash it in days later.
Australian BitConnect promoter pleads guilty years after wife disappears
The judge sentencing Rebelo said he moved her body to the shower in her home to make it look like she died of natural causes, but that she may have been subject to asphyxiation.
However, a postmortem never revealed exactly how she died. The judge said, “The only reasonable inference is that you took your mother by surprise,” adding that he “used personal violence to kill her.”
He added, “You killed her for a financial motive, it was a premeditated offence, a monstrous act that was integral to a fraudulent scheme, which you intended to profit from life insurance policies taken out by you.”
The night before his trial, Rebelo pleaded guilty to the fraud charges regarding the insurance policy and her will.
