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Bogor. A district court in Bogor sentenced 27-year-old con artist Selly Yustiawati to 11 months in prison for defrauding hundreds of people across at least three provinces.

Selly had been wanted by police since March 2010 for luring victims into lending her money and then absconding.

The sentence was lighter than the 12 months imprisonment sought by prosecutors.

“It is just one month lighter from our demand,” said lead prosecutor Muhammad Irsan Arif after Tuesday’s verdict, adding that the prosecution would not lodge an appeal to the West Java High Court.

“We think the sentence has already fulfilled people’s sense of justice,” he said.

Selly’s game came unstuck when some victims divulged details of her acts and known methods on Facebook.

During her time working as a clerk at Kompas in 2009, Selly borrowed money from various colleagues only to disappear months later.

The same methods were used during her stay in Bogor where she borrowed Rp 2.5 million from a friend named Mia and Rp 10 million from another friend called Vica. It was Vica who reported the case to police in Bogor after Selly disappeared with all the money.

Other victims, who were previously reluctant to report the crime, soon came forward saying that Selly had also run a fraudulent insurance scheme and a bogus cellphone business.

Selly was arrested in a hotel in Bali in March.

Judges, presided over by Aroziduhu Waruwu, said that the court considered the fact that Selly is a single mother with a 6-year-old daughter to be a mitigating circumstance.

Ramdhan Alamsyah, Selly’s lawyer, said his team would examine the ruling before determining their next legal move. By law, both sides have seven days to lodge an appeal.

Throughout the three-hour proceedings, Selly kept her head down most of the time. After the guilty verdict was announced, Selly refused to talk to reporters.

However, shortly after her arrest in March, Selly denied that she had defrauded people, saying that she only borrowed money from her friends.

She promised to return double the amount she borrowed.

Selly also denied that she had once posed as a journalist to con people. “I did work at Kompas but I was not a journalist. There, I borrowed money from six people and that case was solved last year by the police.

“It is not true that I made hundreds of millions in profit,” she said.

It is not known exactly how many people Selly duped and how much money she received. Other people have been coming forward claiming that they too were Selly’s victims.

Police said they believed she may also have deceived people in Yogyakarta, Depok, Tangerang, Bandung and Bekasi.

It is unclear if Selly would also face further trials in those cities.