Man posed as spy to con woman: court

A Melbourne man posed as an ASIO agent and convinced a single mother he was the man of her dreams before conning her out of nearly $150,000, a court has heard.

Wayne Charters feigned an interest in Karen Roberts and her hobbies of dolphins, spirituality and art, after the couple met at a Ulysses motorcycle club meeting in February 2003, prosecutors allege.

He told her he was an ASIO agent who would be sent to Iraq if he did not relocate to Canada, the Victorian County Court heard on Monday.

Charters, 55, formerly of Rosebud, convinced Ms Roberts, 47, to sell her Rye home, on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, her car and her furniture, saying they would move overseas together, prosecutor Mark Gibson said.

Mr Gibson told the court the money from the sales went into a joint account, before Mr Charters withdrew it and used it for his own purposes.

"Carefully planned, clever manipulations or mind games all aimed at striking at Karen Roberts' heartstrings, so she would fall in love with him and hand over her assets and money," Mr Gibson said.

"He pretended in true Walter Mitty style ... to be someone he was not."

Charters proposed to Ms Roberts six weeks after they met and the couple were married after just three months together, the court heard.

But Charters, twice previously married and with little money to his name, did not really love his new wife, Mr Gibson said.

"The last thing on his mind when he met the complainant was a legitimate, bona fide marriage," he said.

"The entire marriage was a sham."

The court heard the marriage was never consummated and Ms Roberts returned to Australia after three weeks of the couple's Singaporean honeymoon in 2003.

She never again saw her husband, who remained overseas and returned to Australia in 2008.

Mr Gibson said two things came to his mind about the case, that love is blind and that sometimes people look through rose coloured glasses and ignore the bad signs.

Charters has pleaded not guilty to five counts of obtaining a total of $149,121 worth of property by deception.

Charters' lawyer Justin Wheelahan said his client "utterly denied" saying that he was called up to go to Iraq for ASIO.

He said his client told Ms Roberts he had a low level involvement with the agency.

Mr Wheelahan said there were less exotic reasons why Ms Roberts wanted to sell her house and move overseas.

The trial before Judge James Montgomery continues on Tuesday.