In the early hours of the morning before he was due to appear in court, a Nowra man was allegedly joyriding in a stolen car and using a pinched credit card to buy drinks and cigarettes.
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Jason Fornaciari, 35, was due to appear in Wollongong Local Court on Wednesday on a number of matters but failed to show.
He was arrested on Wednesday night and on Thursday he pleaded with a Wollongong Local Court magistrate to grant him bail but Magistrate Robert Walker was unmoved.
Fornaciari is charged with two counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage and knowingly being conveyed in a stolen car, breaching his previous bail conditions and using a carriage service to menace/harass/offend and threaten to distribute an intimate image without consent.
Police allege that between 2am and 3.30am on Wednesday, August 10, an unknown person smashed the window of a car in Wollongong and stole a purse and a Commonwealth Bank Mastercard.
Just before 4.10am on the same night, Fornaciari arrived at a 7/11 service station on the Princes Highway in Dapto in a Mazda 6 that was stolen between August 7 and 8 in Wollongong, documents tendered to the court allege.
Fornaciari allegedly used the stolen credit card to purchase a packet of Winfield Blues and in a separate purchase bought a packet of Winfield Gold and two 1.25 litre bottles of Coca Cola.
Then, just before 5am, Fornaciari was a passenger in a blue Hyundai and came back to the service station and bought an $80 gift card with the stolen Mastercard, police allege.
The purchases were captured on CCTV and police were able to identify Fornaciari based on earlier interactions with police and his tattoos.
At 1.30pm that afternoon, police found the stolen car in at a Marshall Street address in Dapto.
Police were already investigating Fornaciari after he allegedly made threats to a woman known to him on Friday, July 29.
On Wednesday evening, at 6.30pm police arrived at a Todd Street, Warrawong address and found Fornaciari allegedly hiding in a bedroom under a pile of clothes.
Fornaciari declined to be interviewed but told police: "I can't remember who was driving the car. My head is f---ed".
In Wollongong Local Court on Thursday, Fornaciari's lawyer Stephanie Fowler applied for bail and said that Fornaciari had recently been seriously injured in a violent assault where he was bashed with a pole by a number of unknown assailants.
The injuries Fornaciari suffered had damaged his eyesight and compromised his memory, leaving him struggling to complete day-to-day tasks, Ms Fowler said.
"[Fornaciari] is a vulnerable person with significant physical ailments," she said.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Amelia Wall conceded Fornaciari did have a serious medical condition but his offending necessitated Fornaciari to be held on remand.
"Instead of being in court, [Fornaciari] was committing offences in the community," Sergeant Wall said.
"[There are] serious concerns for the safety of the community."
Magistrate Walker refused bail.
Appearing via video link, Fornaciari could be seen crying out for medication and exhorted Magistrate Walker to look at his head injury.
This did not change the outcome, however, with Fornaciari to remain behind bars before returning to court on August 17.
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