R v Nguyen [2011] VSC 529

2 The Crown opened this matter and a copy of that opening was exhibited[1]. The 18 charges are in many ways repetitious, in terms of the process used, but within each charge, there are a number of different loan applications relating to different individuals. Accordingly, whilst there are only 18 charges on the indictment, there are in fact 58 loan applications, that you submitted to various financial institutions, containing fraudulent documents or information. These 58 applications are divided up between the different charges on the indictment. I will summarise shortly, charge 1 and charge 13, to give but two examples of the processes and manner in which the frauds were carried out. The methodology used by you was repetitious, and contained little variation.

3 In general, the circumstances of the offending are, that you carried on business as a mortgage broker, for a period from late 2002 through to at least July 2008. As indicated, the offending to which you have pleaded guilty is alleged to have started on 11 February 2005. As a mortgage broker, you submitted on behalf of your applicants, various home loan applications, to different financial institutions.

4 The indictment contains 58 loan applications, all of which, contained fraudulent documents, which were submitted to three different financial institutions. Twenty-nine were submitted to Bankwest, twenty-five to ING and four to Interstar. The loans obtained as a consequence of the applications, totalled $14,737,461. You received commissions from these loans which in total, as at 13 May of this year, were $137,494.22. The fraudulent nature of the applications were, in relation to the majority of the cases, the submitting of mortgage applications with fabricated letters relating to employment, purported payslips, or group certificates of the applicant, which were either completely fabricated or substantially altered, by you, for the purpose of ensuring that the banks would approve the loan applications.

5 This business was called Oceania Home Loans, which you commenced in about 2002, you advertised in the Vietnamese language papers, as well as relying upon word of mouth. You had two offices: the first was at 1A Warwick Street, Springvale and the second was at Unit 1, 346 Main Road West, St Albans.

6 In order to enable you to work as a mortgage broker you obtained certification from the Mortgage & Finance Association of Australia. Initially, working for Amadeus, a mortgage manager, you submitted clients' loan applications, thereby gaining experience in industry practices. You next became accredited with Plan Australia, a mortgage aggregator, your intention in doing this was, to obtain the ability to submit mortgages directly to banks, while still improving your accreditation. This apparently, is the process used in the industry, as banks do not accept applications from unaccredited brokers and accordingly, you were trained, if that would be the right description, in the individual products and loan application processes of each financial institution, to whom you were then able to submit applications.

7 Each of those institutions also supplied you with computer software, to assist in your calculation of loan applications. The result of this, so-called training, is that you were able to accurately determine what level of income would be required in order to secure approval for a loan of a particular amount. This process allowed you to know, exactly what documents had to be fraudulently obtained, or altered and presented, to ensure that the loan application would be successful. These financial institutions, at least, appear to be lacking any rigorous processes that would protect them from such deceptions and would be well advised, to take steps to ensure that the processes they provide currently, are not capable of being abused in this manner, in the future.

8 The motivation for the false applications was, you stated to the police, the commission that you would receive from the banks, upon the successful approval of an application. Firstly, by way of an upfront commission as a percentage of the loan and what was referred to as a trailing commission, which is, a small percentage of the outstanding loan as it continued on. You would have continued to receive these small amounts of commission, had these offences not been brought to light. Those commissions were being paid up to the time of your plea of guilty before me. They will no longer be ongoing.

9 The false documents, created by you, to support the loans included false payslips, group certificates and letters of employment. You created non-existent firms, you altered legitimate payslips to increase the applicant's income, provided telephone numbers for the banks to check those details, and in support of that, rented from Telstra a number of additional phone lines and numbers. You obtained those, in not only your own name, but the name of others, including family members and all of those numbers were diverted to your mobile phone. You did this, so that, if inquiries were made by the banks to the employers listed in the applications, you could become that employer, for the purpose of verifying the employment and salary details of the applicant.

10 The result is, that a number of applications totalling, as I indicated earlier, $14,737,461 were approved, which would not have been approved, if the true financial situation of the applicants for the mortgages were known. By supplying the false details, you have undermined the integrity of the approval process and prejudiced the banks, but only, to the degree of having exposure to a higher level of loan default risk than they would normally accept. The value of the properties, against which the mortgages were approved, were higher than the total of the loans granted. The result is that none of the financial institutions from whom the money was obtained, have suffered loss. What they suffered was an exposure to a risk of loss.

11 Equally, the Crown referred in the opening to the fact that of the 58 properties involved, 20 of them related to properties obtained and used as cannabis grow houses, by an organised crime syndicate. That means that, in 20 of those cases the applicants had no legitimate means of repaying the mortgages, and they could only be funded using the proceeds of the cultivation and trafficking of the cannabis grown in the houses. A further nine properties involved applications or addresses, which were connected to the syndicate, but in which no crop of cannabis was located. The significance of this fact I shall refer to later.

12 You made admissions to the police in your second interview on 7 October 2010. At that stage you voluntarily attended at the Fraud Squad, having previously attended a few days earlier and denying the offences. You admitted, creating and submitting the fraudulent documents with the mortgage applications, which was done, you said, to ensure the banks would approve the mortgages. You admitted, obtaining the additional phone numbers, for the purpose of verifying the legitimacy of employment details, of the various applicants, if the financial institutions sought to check the accuracy of those documents.

13 You denied, however, knowing that a significant number of the properties or the applicants with whom you dealt were affiliated with an organised crime syndicate, involved in the cultivation and trafficking of cannabis.

14 I intend to outline, in more details, only two of the charges to which you have pleaded guilty, merely as examples of the nature of your offending.

15 The first, being charge 1, relates to three applications for loans totalling $682,000. Those applications were dated 11 February 2005, 28 February 2005 and 14 June 2005. All three applications were made to Bankwest. The first in the sum of $192,000 was made on behalf of Nghia Van Tran relating to a property at 20 Greenacres Crescent, Narre Warren. The application was supported by a letter of employment and two payslips relating to a company called B & M Corporation located at 236 Springvale Road, Mulgrave with a telephone number of 9548 2068. The company did not exist, the address given was the address of a veterinarian who had occupied the site for 35 years and the phone number, was a number connected by you at your home address. You created these documents to support the application. You received $3,060.70 in commission payments for brokering the mortgage.

16 The second application was on behalf of Minh Phuc Doan. The application was in the sum of $266,000 to purchase a property at 55 Pine Road, Richlands, Queensland. Again, this had a letter of employment and two related payslips. The company was called Sun & Son's Columns. Although you were not questioned by the police in respect of this, a template for the employment letter and the payslips which match exactly was found, on your hard disk drive, and I am satisfied that you created those documents. You received $2,291.60 in commission payments for brokering the mortgage.

17 The third application was on behalf of Van Bao Tran and Thi Le Thanh Luong for the refinancing of a property at 13 Chifley Crescent, Dandenong, in the sum of $224,000. The application was supported by a letter of employment and two related payslips, in respect of Luong and a group certificate and two payslips, relating to Tran. The documents relating to Tran were correct. The documents of Luong, bore the employer's name of Minh Tan II. Those documents had correct ABN numbers and address details and a telephone number of 9546 1247, another telephone connected and paid for by you. The owner of Minh Tan II, had no knowledge of the person, who purportedly signed the letter of employment and did not know, the person by the name of Luong. Once again, you were not questioned regarding Minh Tan II in your record of interview, but in your hard disk drive, was a template for an employment letter and also for the payslips. You received $2,238.47 in commission payments for brokering the mortgage.

18 None of these three applications were in any way linked to the organised criminal syndicate.

19 The next charge, and the only other one with which I will deal in any detail, and chosen only as an example, is charge 13. That charge relates to a total loan facility amount of $1,490,750 and concerns applications made on 17 September 2007, two applications on 15 October 2007, one on 29 October 2007 and one on 4 November 2007 to Bank West

20 The circumstances relating to that offence are, the that first application was for a loan totalling $220,000 on behalf of The Dung Dang, for the purchase of a property at Lot 1615 Sayers Road, Truganina. This application was supported by a letter of employment and two related payslips. The letter, bore the details of Paris Hot Bread with an ABN number and telephone number. Both the ABN number and the telephone number provided were legitimate. The business is owned and run by one of your sisters and her husband. Contained on your hard disk drive were templates of letters, payslips, group certificates and weekly pay registers, bearing details of Paris Hot Bread but containing names of different employees. Paris Hot Bread was also, the nominated employer, for three other mortgage applications. You admitted during your interview, that you used the details of Paris Hot Bread fraudulently. You received $925.76 in commission payments for brokering this mortgage. This mortgage, again, had no evidence linking it to the organised criminal syndicate.

21 The second application, on 15 October 2007 on behalf of Thi Phuong Pham was to assist with a property situated at 20 Rossiter Avenue, Endeavour Hills for a total amount of $327,750. It was supported by a letter of employment and two related payslips. The letter of employment was from a company called TQN Clothing, located at 365 Wells Road, Aspendale Gardens with a phone number of 9580 7120. The address does not exist. The phone number, is registered in the name of your brother in law, Sac Ho of 7 Hannagan Street, Aspendale. TQN Clothing was the employer nominated for applicants, in six other mortgage applications and you admitted, that you used the details of TQN Clothing fraudulently, by creating these documents. You received $3,374.18 in commission payments for brokering this mortgage.

22 On 18 June 2008, a search warrant was executed at the address by police and 244 cannabis plants were located. Thi Phuong Pham, the applicant for the mortgage, is now currently on remand, on charges of cultivating a narcotic plant and trafficking cannabis.

23 Also, on the same date, you submitted a loan application on behalf of Cuong Thi Pham and Tuan Anh Le to assist with purchasing 26 Burchall Grove, Dandenong North for a total of $260,000. The application was supported by a letter of employment and two related payslips, for each applicant. The documents for both applicants bore the details of Carnegie Hot Bread and the ABN number, address and phone numbers for each was legitimate. The owner states, he has never heard of or employed, either of the mortgage applicants. Each of the applicants stated to the police, that they did not supply the documents to you, or tell you, that they were employed there. Further, this same organisation, Carnegie Hot Bread, was also the nominated employer, for another applicant in another fraudulent application. You could not recall this, when asked about it in your record of interview. You received $2,398.31 in commission for this mortgage. This, again, was not linked in any way to the organised criminal syndicate.

24 On 29 October 2007 you submitted a loan on behalf of Thi Than Thuy Nguyen in relation to 36 Norfolk Drive, Narre Warren in the sum of $265,500. The application included a letter of employment and two related payslips from the Gold Leaf Restaurant. Once again the ABN number, the address and the phone number of the company were legitimate. The owner of the company stated, he had never heard of or employed the applicant Nguyen. You admitted in your interview, that you had used the details of that organisation fraudulently. You received $2,759.90 in commission.

25 On 20 July 2010 a search warrant was executed at the address by police and 151 cannabis plants were located. This address has been restrained under proceeds of crime legislation. The loan applicant Nguyen was not present and her whereabouts are now unknown.

26 Finally, in respect of this charge, on 4 November 2007, you submitted a loan application on behalf of The Cuong Nguyen and Kim Thuy Bui in respect of 75 Turramurra Drive, Rowville for a total of $417,500. It was supported by a letter of employment and two related payslips for each applicant. The letter and payslips pertaining to Bui bore the details of Atomik Pink. The letter and payslips pertaining to Nguyen bore the details of Main Freight. In both cases the ABN numbers, addresses and phone numbers were correct. The applicants were both employed by the respective companies and in the case of Nguyen, the letter of employment was legitimate. However, the other letter on behalf of Bui and all four payslips, relating to both applicants were not produced by either company. The letter on behalf of Bui, exaggerated Bui's income. On your hard disk were located, templates for the two employment letters and templates for two of the payslips, one for each of the companies. You could not recall either, in your record of interview. This was a second application made on behalf of the same applicants. There was no evidence linking this address, or applicant, to the organised criminal syndicate and the commission you received was accounted for in respect of charge 3, the other application made on behalf of those applicants.

27 Your counsel, in the plea presented on your behalf, submitted that the money that you had received, together with other money that you had earnt, had been lost to gambling and that you were a pathological gambler. I have some difficulties in respect of this matter, as the instructions that you gave to your counsel seem to vary enormously, upon questions being raised.

28 Initially, you instructed your counsel that your gambling addiction commenced as a result of you gambling on blackjack at Crown Casino, whilst you were a croupier employed at Crown. That, of course, is not possible as staff at Crown are not permitted to gamble within the casino. The instructions then changed, to you gambling interstate or on poker machines and when pressed about this, as to records interstate or records demonstrating you flying interstate, again the information provided changed and it was submitted, that you predominantly drove interstate to gamble at the casinos. However, at that same time that this is supposedly occurring, you have instructed your counsel that you were working from 9.00 am to 5.00 pm in the mortgage broking business and then working at Crown from 8 pm until 4 am. You did both of those tasks, according to your counsel, five days a week having the weekends off, which in itself seems unusual, but they are the instructions that he put to me. You would then have possibly three hours' sleep at the most and then back to your mortgage business.

29 He informed the Court, that your instructions were, that on your weekends you would drive to either Sydney, Adelaide or occasionally Brisbane, for the sole purpose of gambling at casinos in those States.

30 I find it very difficult to accept that a person subsisting on three hours' sleep a night would then get into his vehicle and drive between 10 and 12 hours either way to have a potentially very short time to gamble at a casino interstate. I find it implausible and I do not accept it. You may well have been gambling, but that was not the form that it took. I am not satisfied that you were, in fact, a pathological gambler. I have no knowledge as to what has happened to the money you have received, but it is not particularly relevant for the purposes of sentencing. Gambling is an explanation, or a partial explanation, about why someone may commit frauds of this nature. It does not mitigate, other than possibly very slightly, the appropriate penalty to be imposed upon you, particularly in light of the fact, that your counsel specifically disavowed any Verdins principles having application in your case. I will deal with that matter shortly.

31 An infinitely more concerning part of the plea was a discussion by counsel appearing on your behalf, Mr McClure, and myself[2]:

Her Honour: How did he come to start doing this? How did he, the first? Did anyone ask him to do it? How did all this happen?

McClure: He was asked to do it.

Her Honour: By whom?

McClure: By one of his clients.

Her Honour: Because he's done it how many times 58 times?

McClure: Yes 58.

Her Honour: Did 58 people ask him to do this? Did 58 people separately come and ask him to do this?

McClure: Not 58 separate people. Some of those, as your Honour has heard, are involved in the crime syndicate. So he would, in matters where those people are involved, it would be a person that would contact him to arrange a mortgage for a property that was eventually to be used unknown to him for illegal purposes.

Her Honour: So there is a concession that at that time it wasn't that he was approached by individuals in relation to these properties? He was approached by someone involved with an organisation? So not the individuals and he has responded to that person and just put in whoever they have told him to nominate and drawn up documents?

McClure: Yes.

Her Honour: That's about as bad as it gets for a fraud of this nature isn't it?

McClure: It is. On one view it's reflective I would submit of his naivety.

Her Honour: No not at all. Why is it naïve, he's drawn up documents, he's created things, he's done what he's been asked to do by a criminal organisation?

McClure: Yes - I mean in terms of the - certainly I concede that it's well planned, it's sophisticated, it's well thought out but naivety I suppose in terms of the outcome of the situation and opening himself up to prosecution like this.

32 In submissions, your counsel put forward that you were naïve, which was how you first became involved in these offences, prior to any involvement of the syndicate:[3]

Her Honour: So how did he come to end up making up these documents for these people? [a reference to charge 1].

McClure: These were people who had approached him through his business either through friends who he had acted for before as a mortgage broker or from word of mouth and they approached him and said "I want a property. I don't have the money for it. Can you help him" and he stupidly said yes.

33 A further submission made on your behalf related to your interaction with Luis, a man you referred to in your second record of interview, as being an accountant who came into the office you shared with a real estate agent, some time in 2002 and determined to show you, how to fraudulently create documents. As I understood the submissions put on your behalf, you knew Luis for at least two years from that time. You did not know his surname, where he lived or how to contact him, but he would ,from time to time, turn up and show you how to deal with and create various documents. You said, he then sent you different clients, for whom you created false documents and obtained loans.

34 I do not intend to act upon what appears to me to be a description of uncharged acts as your offending only commences on the indictment in 2005. Further, however, I also do not accept that this unknown person, with whom you were friends and with whom you socialised for a couple of years, would conveniently turn up as required to assist you and demonstrate how to create false documents, yet you knew no more than that he had an Australian name of Luis and was from the north of Vietnam, but did not know his actual first name or surname, his address, his contact details or any information relating to him.

35 In relation to this, I am accordingly unable to say how you started or even why you started creating these documents except I am satisfied that it was done for the purpose of obtaining money.

36 Mr McLure, informed the court at a later point that what he had put submitted in respect to your involvement in the houses relating to the criminal syndicate was in fact not right and the following passage occurred:[4]

Her Honour: No, no you've told me earlier and unless you're saying this is totally wrong, you said that at the time he made the applications in respect of these houses that became the crop houses he was asked to do that by people that he met from the casino who had lent him money or a criminal element, that he knew it was for a criminal purpose. He just didn't know what. So it wasn't a case of people walking into his office and saying "I want a loan". There were some that were that but there were all these others. So is that right or is it not?

McClure: It is right for ...

Her Honour: Your client wants to speak to you ...

McClure: Thank you your Honour. The loan sharks that I am speaking of now from 2008 onwards relate only to his borrowing of money from those people.

Her Honour: And who are the previous people?

McClure: They are the clients from the office who have ...

Her Honour: What did you tell me? What about what you told me before?

McClure: What I told you before was not correct.

Her Honour: Well Mr McClure I really am - I have to say I find this all very difficult now. You just can't make things up to put to me.

McClure: I haven't made them up.

Her Honour: No, I am saying you can't have and now I have a change of I'm presuming a change of instructions about all of this. So I am finding it very very difficult. It is not going well.

McClure: Yes your Honour.

Her Honour: I don't know what you expect me to do about this. I have so many different versions now.

McClure: Yes your Honour.

Her Honour: What do you expect I'm going to do in terms of fact finding?

McClure: Yes your Honour. The instructions that I have received over lunch were those but the charges the subject of today's hearings were as a result of interactions with clients who'd come for the purposes of obtaining a loan.

Her Honour: But you couldn't have made up the fact of what you told me earlier, that he was approached by a particular person from the syndicate and he would tell him which houses needed it. That just can't sit with what you are saying. That can't be reconciled.

McClure: No your Honour. The position of Mr Nguyen is that that's what he was doing. People were approaching him at the office and he was using false documents to obtain mortgages for those people, the purposes for which he had no idea.

37 The whole of the process employed in respect of this plea was unsatisfactory. I am far from satisfied that you did not know that these houses were being obtained for an illegal purpose. But if I am to use that material in a manner adverse to you I have to be satisfied of that beyond reasonable doubt. I will not visit upon you what appeared to me to be an under prepared plea. Accordingly, I will not treat in any way as a matter of aggravation my suspicion that you knew that these houses, being obtained on behalf of the syndicate, were being obtained for an illegal purpose.

38 The plea that was conducted on your behalf was far from satisfactory and did a great deal to confuse the issues that have to be determined by this Court. As indicated, I will act only upon the favourable parts of what was contained within the plea and will not use the submissions or statements that cause a court to be suspicious in relation to a number of other aspects of your offending.

39 However it still remains that this is serious offending. The amount of money imperilled was substantial. The amount of money gained by you in the form of commissions was significant. It continued over a lengthy period of time as is reflected in the fact that this is a continuing criminal enterprise.

40 Equally, however, you have a number of significant matters that must be taken into account in your favour. They are firstly, your plea of guilty. Secondly, that you have no prior or subsequent convictions of any note. There are two matters relating to land management which in my view bear no relevance whatsoever to the sentence that I have to impose. You co-operated with the police on the second occasion and you pleaded guilty in what could be described as an early plea. I also have to take into account your personal circumstances.

41 You were born on 1 June 1974 in Vietnam and are currently aged 37 years of age. You migrated to Australia in 1983 having spent some two years at a refugee camp in Thailand with your father and your brother. Your mother and sisters joining you in Australia about a year after your arrival.

42 Your father is now aged 73 and in poor health with failing eyesight and hearing and your mother 64 and well.. You are the youngest of five children, having three older sisters aged 48, 46 and 39 and an older brother. You were approximately 9 years of age when you arrived in Australia. You were educated at St Joseph Primary School and then Mazenod College where you completed year 12 studying accounting, economics, legal studies and maths methods intending to do commerce at university. You did not gain the required marks and instead you completed what appears to be a two year part time diploma course at TAFE. I am unaware of what the TAFE course was.

43 Upon leaving school you gained employment at Crown Casino as a croupier from about May 1997 and continued working at Crown as a croupier until some time in 2003. I am unable to say whether it was full time or part time by the end of your employment, as what was put by your counsel differs to what is contained in the history recited by Elizabeth Warren, consulting forensic psychologist in her report dated 11 May 2010.

44 You commenced your mortgage broking business in 2002. You lived with your parents until you married in 2001 and divorced in 2007 as your wife desired to return to Vietnam where her family lived. Her family were described as wealthy and she wished to work for her father. It was reported that you preferred living in Australia and as a result you divorced, and there were no children from that marriage.

45 You have a current partner, Hue, who you met through your sister, as she was employed by her. She is also divorced and a single parent of a young daughter who is now aged 4. On 1 May this year you and Hue became parents to a daughter named Emma. You are also a father figure to Hue's daughter from her previous marriage and have been living together as a family since November 2010.

46 Ms Matthews conducted a brief intellectual assessment and found that you were of average to high average intelligence. You are now employed by the Salvation Army as a driver and you have been for some time. You enjoy the work and you believe it to be something that is socially worthwhile.

47 You have the support of your family and I have been provided with a number of references. The references included a statement from your current partner and from your brother. You have also written a letter to the Court, all of which I have taken into account. In all of your references, including those from your family, they talk about you being a kind, caring and above all honest man. Those descriptions cannot, of course, sit with your conduct for which you are to be sentenced but despite the offending you are entitled to be considered that apart from this offending that you are normally an honest man.

48 The manner in which the plea was conducted would normally cause me to have considerable doubts about that honesty. But I am not prepared to make adverse findings that reflect or impact upon your sentence as a consequence of what was a poorly conducted plea. Whilst each of the letters from you, your partner and your family request that a non-custodial sentence be imposed, that is not possible in circumstances of offending of this nature.

49 The offending is serious. It is persistent and even though I am not prepared to find as a fact that you were aware of the purpose, it was also enabling for those wanting to set up crop houses, that being at least 20 of these applications. The flow-on consequence to the community from you obtaining these loans for those people are that marijuana crops have been grown, harvested and distributed. Whilst you are not the person behind that activity, if you had not applied for the loans and provided fraudulent details these persons would not have been able to acquire the properties for that purpose. It demonstrates some of the serious consequences that flow from your offending. You, of course, are not to be sentenced for the trafficking or cultivation of that cannabis, and I shall ensure that I will not do that, but it does tend to highlight the seriousness of offences of this nature.

50 I do find that you have good prospects of rehabilitation. You had closed this business and ceased offending prior to the matter being discovered by the authorities, you have a wife and two children who care for you, as well as your extended family. Your gambling, at whatever true level it may have been, has ceased. Mr. Gwynne on the further plea submitted that the gambling was a background issue and it was not sought to be submitted that it was the reason for the offending, but you have sought and are receiving on going counselling in prison. All of that augers well for your rehabilitation

51 I have not gone into the circumstances relating to the situation of your home, your sister's home or your parents' home as I am far from confident as to the consequences, the accuracy or the truthfulness of what I have been informed in respect of those matters. I am not prepared to act upon any of that material. Your house was the subject of a restraining order but was sold to your sister. Not all of the monies supposedly owing under the contract were passed over, some held back as being for debt owed by you to your sister and claims were made as to various amounts being paid to persons you owed money to. None of this is recorded. None of this is capable of verification. Accordingly, I am not prepared to act upon it either for or against you and I put it completely to one side.

52 I am of the view that it is unnecessary to impose a disproportionate sentence pursuant to the continuing criminal offender sections of the act, in your case.

53 In the circumstances of this case and trying to balance all of the matters to which I have referred, including your personal circumstances, your new child, your re-partnering to a stable decent woman, your early guilty plea, lack of prior convictions, lack of subsequent offending and your prospects of rehabilitation with specific and general deterrence which are relevant factors and the seriousness of the continuing criminal enterprise that this was, as I have already outlined, there is in my view no doubt that the sentence to be imposed must be one of imprisonment and of a substantial period of imprisonment.

54 Accordingly on the charges to which you have pleaded guilty I sentence you as follows:

Charge 1 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 3 years

Charge 2 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 2 years and 6 months

Charge 3 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 3 years and 6 months

Charge 4 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 2 years and 6 months

Charge 5 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 2 years and 6 months

Charge 6 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 2 years

Charge 7 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 3 years and 6 months

Charge 8 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 2 years

Charge 9 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 2 years and 6 months

Charge 10 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 2 years

Charge 11 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 2 years and 6 months

Charge 12 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 2 years and 6 months

Charge 13 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 3 years and 6 months

Charge 14 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 2 years

Charge 15 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 1 year and 6 months

Charge 16 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 4 years

Charge 17 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 2 years

Charge 18 - sentenced to be imprisoned for a term of 4 years

I direct that charge 18 is the base sentence and that 12 months of the sentence imposed on charge 3 be served cumulatively on the sentence on charge 18, and that six months of the sentence imposed on charge 2 be served cumulatively upon the sentences imposed on charges 18 and 3. I direct that all other sentences be served concurrently.

That makes a total of five years and 6 months imprisonment, and I direct that you are to serve three years imprisonment before becoming eligible for parole. I Have imposed a shorter than usual non parole period to reflect particularly your prospects of rehabilitation.

Pursuant to s 6AAA I declare that but for the plea of guilty, the total sentence I would have imposed would have been 7 years and 6 months with a minimum of 5 years. I do not intend to state what sentence I would have imposed on each individual charge as that, in my view, is descending to a hypothetical particularity that is not required and does not assist.

I make the pecuniary penalty order of $137,494.22 by consent.

[2] Pages 28-29 of plea transcript, 23 May 2011.

[3] Page 29 of plea transcript 23 May 2011