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The coercive control, abuse and gaslighting Narghiza Ergashova endured throughout her relationship with disgraced businessman and fraudster Enrico Pucci left her questioning reality.
The 50-year-old logged into her Tesla app to track her, slow her car down to 40 kilometres per hour on main roads, manipulate climate controls and disconnect charging. He repeatedly contacted her employer until she was fired, forged an employment contract to trick her into believing she had a lucrative job and coerced her to hand over her life savings.
He strangled her, beat her, stalked her and convinced her he was serving a prison sentence to protect her from facing charges, causing her to become fearful and distrustful of the police.
“I didn’t have a day’s worth of reality,” Ergashova said.
“Every ounce of my independence was taken away because the only way he could be with me is to make me completely and utterly dependent and subservient to him … I felt like a slave.”
Pucci has been convicted of 30 domestic violence-related offences, including eight counts of stalking, six counts of assault, two counts of choking, five counts of contravening an AVO, one count of coercive control, assault occasioning actual bodily harm, financial deception, revenge porn and theft.
He pleaded guilty a week before his trial started and was sentenced last week to two years in prison. With time served, he will be released on parole in February.
He is one of the first tranche of people to serve jail time for coercive control, a criminal offence introduced in July 2024. He was also issued a five-year apprehended violence order.
Extreme violence and control
Pucci and Ergashova met in 2018. “The first year and a half was bliss … [but he] is skilled in misrepresenting and lying,” she said.
The couple’s relationship was built on a lie: Pucci was still married despite telling her he was divorced, and was engaged to both Ergashova and another woman simultaneously.
Soon, the violence started. In 2020, Pucci dragged her out of a car in a park and drove off, before returning and accelerating toward her, braking just in front of her.
Twice he strangled her, once until she lost consciousness. He threatened to send sexually explicit images to her employer. He broke her finger and texted her death threats. “Don’t tempt me, you know I can kill you with one hand,” he wrote. “I will destroy you.”
Each time Ergashova tried to leave, Pucci threatened her until she returned, convincing her it was safest to stay. They lived separately, with Pucci dropping into Ergashova’s home in Sydney’s north-west. They married in 2021.
In July 2024, Pucci made repeated anonymous calls and emails to her employer until she was fired.
In early 2025, he presented her with a fake employment contract offering a consulting role with a nearly quarter-million-dollar salary, and created false email addresses to which Ergashova wrote.
She was never paid and turned down legitimate accountancy work.
Shortly after, Pucci solicited $100,000 from her, promising to repay it within a week. She transferred her life savings.
“Unemployed at home [and] surveilled through my car, through my watch, from my computer … I was completely vulnerable,” she said.
“He created such lies in my head that I lived my life thinking he saved my life, that he was my rescuer.”
By late 2025, Ergashova thought she had left for good, but Pucci stole her smartwatch to track her and tampered with her Tesla app. He manipulated settings remotely and set up parental controls to lock her out, and showed up at her home and social outings.
Pucci later sent photos of injuries Ergashova had inflicted in self-defence, claiming police were planning to charge her with grievous bodily harm.
“I wouldn’t open the door to police… not knowing that they’re trying to get a statement from me against him,” she said.
It was only when she provided evidence for coercive control charges that the full reality of the abuse dawned on her. “I’m reading [the evidence], thinking, ‘No, this can’t be my life’.”
In sentencing, Judge Stuart Devine said Pucci had engaged in “sustained and deliberate” behaviour to control Ergashova.
“[Through] repeated surveillance, economic manipulation, exploitation of victim’s vulnerabilities … [he] was coercive and controlling in nature, to entrench power and compliance,” Devine said.
A series of frauds
Pucci also defrauded another woman out of $490,000, whom he was engaged to at the same time he was both married and in a relationship with Ergashova.
Weeks after loaning him the money, he broke up with the woman, who goes by the online nom de plume Lady Whistleblow. When she requested the money back, he sent her a photo of him sitting next to piles of cash, according to court documents. Pucci then used some of the cash to pay back the money he owed to Ergashova.
Lady Whistleblow launched legal proceedings alleging she was a victim of a “sophisticated scam” devised by Pucci, his family and Ergashova to lure her into handing over money.
According to her case, the group convinced her Pucci was single. Her case claims the group targeted her with a “concerted campaign of harassment”, lodging more than 40 police complaints – none of which resulted in charges.
As the pair battled a civil case arising from the half-million-dollar fraud, Pucci convinced Ergashova they needed to win together for her to regain her accounting career.
The initial judgement found that while Ergashova intimidated Whistleblow, her role in the alleged conspiracy was unclear. Pucci’s assets were frozen and the case remains before the courts. Ergashova has filed a motion to dismiss herself from the case.
The district court ordered Pucci to repay the funds in 2021. He declared bankruptcy.
Pucci has also been banned from managing companies for five years after the Australian Securities and Investments Commission found he engaged in illegal phoenixing with three failed firms. This follows a 2017 Federal Court ruling that he and his brothers exploited vulnerable employees under a “shameless” scheme.
A path to healing
Since leaving Pucci, Ergashova has moved interstate and rekindled her career.
“I’ve embraced the fact that anyone can be a victim of domestic control,” she said.
She is speaking out to help others recognise abuse and challenge victim stereotypes.
“I’m back in my power, but I’m also looking back and thinking, how did I let this happen to me? It’s years of my life I can never get back.”
Their divorce will be finalised in November.
Pucci will be released on parole in February. He is appealing his sentence.
Support is available from the National Sexual Assault, Domestic Family Violence Counselling Service at 1800RESPECT (1800 737 732) or the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491.
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Amber Schultz is a crime and justice reporter with The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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