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DPP v Pipicelli [2024] VCC 951 (20 June 2024)
Last Updated: 15 July 2024
IN THE COUNTY COURT OF
VICTORIA
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Revised Not Restricted Suitable for Publication
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AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
CR-22-01581
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS
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v
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DEAN PATRICK PIPICELLI
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---
JUDGE:
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HIS HONOUR JUDGE MAIDMENT
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WHERE HELD:
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Melbourne
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DATE OF HEARING:
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11 & 20 June 2024
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DATE OF SENTENCE:
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20 June 2024
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CASE MAY BE CITED AS:
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DPP v Pipicelli
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MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:
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[2024] VCC 951
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REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject: Plea - sentencing
Catchwords: Obtain financial advantage by deception - theft
Legislation Cited:
Cases Cited: R v Grossi [2008] VSCA 51
Sentence: 30 months' imprisonment, non-parole period 16 months
---
APPEARANCES:
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Counsel
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Solicitors
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For the Director of Public Prosecutions
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Mr P. Pickering
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Office of Public Prosecutions
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For the Accused on 11 June 2024 For the Accused on 20 June 2024
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Mr Phil Dunn KC Ms R. Zaydan
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Garde Wilson Lawyers
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HIS HONOUR:
- Dean
Patrick Pipicelli, you have pleaded guilty to eight offences of obtaining
financial advantage by deception and one offence of
theft. The maximum penalty
for each offence is imprisonment for 10 years. You have no prior criminal
record. The prosecution tendered
and read to the court a summary of opening,
which is marked Exhibit A.
- Your
offending took place between 25 January 2019 and 2 April 2020. During that
period you preyed upon and wantonly deceived your
business partner Vera
Maschette, her husband Wayne Maschette and five other victims into entrusting
you with a combined total of
more than $700,000 of their own money, leaving them
collectively out of pocket from your offending in a total sum of $578,033. Vera
and Wayne Maschette vividly describe in their victim impact statements the hurt
and the serious psychological impacts of your violation
of their trust in you
and the significant erosion of their life savings in the total amount of
$335,633 for which they now seek compensation
from you.
- The
background to your offending is as follows. On 4 October 2017 Gippsland Timber
Pty Ltd was registered - I am going to refer to
that from here on as 'the
company'. The two directors were Vera Maschette and yourself. You were also a
contractor for the company
and had known Vera Maschette and her husband Wayne
Maschette for about five years. The business of the company was to purchase
timber
at wholesale prices and sell it to builders in the Corinella area, and I
refer to that business as 'the business' during the remainder
of these
remarks.
- Prior
to commencing as a director of the company and contractor to the company, you
had worked in the timber supply industry as a
sole trader and had both
experience and contacts in the industry. Vera and Wayne Maschette had limited
experience in this industry
and relied on your experience. You had two personal
bank accounts, one with the Commonwealth Bank and the other with the Bendigo
Bank. There was also a company bank account.
- Dealing
next with the nine offences to which you have pleaded guilty: firstly, in
relation to Charge 1, in January 2019 you informed
Vera Maschette that it was
necessary to update the forklift belonging to the company. You stated that
Longmuir Transport was providing
storage of the company's timber and that they
were using the current forklift for their purposes as well as loading and
unloading
the company's timber. You told Vera Maschette that you had agreed
with Longmuir Transport that the company and Longmuir Transport
would each pay
half of the cost of the purchase of a new forklift. In reliance upon that
information Vera Maschette agreed on behalf
of the company to provide the sum of
$7,400 representing the other half of the cost of the forklift.
- On
25 January 2019 you transferred to your own bank account the sum of $7,400 from
the company Commonwealth Bank account, describing
the transaction as,
'forklift'. Some months later in 2019 you produced to Vera Maschette a document
which purported to be a receipt
dated 25 January 2019 and signed by Glenn
Longmuir on behalf of Longmuir Transport for the purchase of the forklift. The
document
was false as the signature of Glenn Longmuir was a forgery and no money
had been paid or received by Glenn Longmuir for the purchase
of the
forklift.
- Dealing
next with Charge 2: Darcy Atkins had met you in December 2018 through the local
Stony Creek Football Club when you were the
assistant coach and Atkins was a
player. In April 2019 you approached Atkins and offered him a deal investing in
Gippsland Timber
for the purchase of timber and sale at a profit. You and
Atkins agreed that Atkins would transfer the sum of $72,000 over a series
of
transactions which would be used by Gippsland Timber to purchase timber. You
represented to Atkins that the money paid by Atkins
would be used to purchase
timber which would then be sold at a profit, and once the profits for the
business reached $105,000 you
would start making repayments to Atkins of the
money invested. Atkins would then receive a profit on the sales of the timber
purchased
by Gippsland Timber.
- On
13 May 2019 you provided to Atkins a statutory declaration acknowledging that:
(a) the sum of $35,000 had been borrowed by you to buy timber;
(b) you would repay the sum of $62,000, which would include the amount of
$35,000, by 20 weekly repayments of $2500 plus a remaining
payment of $12,000
for a total of $62,000.
- On
20 May 2019 you provided Atkins with a statutory declaration acknowledging that:
(a) the sum of $72,000 had been borrowed by you to buy timber; and
(b) you would repay the sum of $112,000 which included the amount of $72,000 by
20 weekly repayments of $4000 plus a remaining payment
of $32,000 for a total of
$112,000.
- On
2 August 2019 you and Atkins signed a loan agreement you had prepared which
stated that Atkins as lender would advance to you as
borrower the principal sum
of $105,000 to assist with financing the purchase of timber for your commercial
timber business and the
loan would be repaid without interest 104 weeks from the
date of signing by instalments of $2000 per week commencing on 2 August
2019.
You purported to provide security for the loan over a Mazda motor vehicle and a
Ford utility and 'any available business stock
existing in the Borrower's
business at the time of default'.
- Between
11 April 2019 and 30 January 2020 Atkins made 19 separate payments to you,
either directly or into your CBA bank account or
to the company account,
totalling $123,400. You obtained the moneys paid by Atkins by deception. The
moneys paid to you by him
were not used for purchasing timber, whether by you or
by Gippsland Timber Pty Ltd. You repaid Atkins the sum of $91,000 by
instalments
between 27 April 2019 and 15 May 2020 but failed to pay him the
balance of $32,400 you had borrowed or any profit on the sale of
timber.
- Dealing
next with Charge 3: in April 2019 you told Vera Maschette that you had an
agreement to sell timber to Barry Williams of SML
Construction in San Remo. You
represented that the timber would be purchased wholesale and then
on-sold to
Williams. You told Vera Maschette that you had a contract to supply timber
valued at $220,000 for a retaining wall project
and produced a contract
purportedly signed by Barry Williams. What you told Vera Maschette was false.
No such contract was ever
signed by Barry Williams and he never agreed to the
purchase of timber from you or the company. You provided a quotation from
Outlast
Timber for the supply of the wholesale timber at a cost of approximately
$153,000. However, you did not place the order with Outlast
Timber but instead
made a series of transfers totalling $93,081 from the company business account
to your own bank account. You
described the transfers as being to, 'Outlast
Timber'. You obtained the $93,081 by deception. No moneys were paid to Outlast
Timber
and you used the moneys for your own purposes, falsely describing the
transfers as being paid to Outlast Timber.
- Dealing
with Charge 4: in mid-2019 you approached a close friend, James Mahood, and
offered him a deal to invest in the sale of timber
packs. Mahood had known you
for about 16 years and you and he had played sport together. You told Mahood
that you were buying packs
of spotted gum timber for your commercial timber
business. You told Mahood that you were getting seconds or non- perfect timber
at a good price and would combine them with perfect packs for selling for a
profit. You asked Mahood to lend you money to buy the
timber packs and that you
would repay the money at $500 per week. Mahood agreed to lend you moneys for
the purchase of timber packs
for sale at a profit. Between 16 July 2019 and 23
August 2019 Mahood made the 10 separate payments of $5000 into your bank
account.
- You
produced a loan agreement in almost identical terms to that you had provided to
Atkins. It contained the following terms:
(a) you would borrow the sum of $50,000 on 26 August 2019 to assist you with
financing of the purchase of timber for your commercial
timber business;
(b) the loan would be repaid without interest 108 weeks from the date of signing
by instalments of $500 per week, commencing on 30
August 2019; and
(c) you provided security for the loan in the same Mazda vehicle and the same
Ford utility vehicle, and again, 'any available business
stock existing in the
Borrower's business at the time of default'.
- You
and Mahood signed the agreement on 21 August 2019. You obtained the $50,000
paid by Mahood by deception. The moneys paid to
you by Mahood were not used for
the purpose of purchasing timber. You repaid to Mahood the sum of $15,000 by
instalments between
August 2019 andMay 2020 but failed to pay the balance of
$35,000 to Mahood or any profit from the sale of timber.
- Dealing
with Charge 5: on 6 November 2019 you informed Vera Maschette that you wanted to
sell a half-acre block of land at 56 Woodbridge
Circuit, Coronet Bay. You
claimed that you had contracted to purchase the block some time earlier for
$245,000 but it was now worth
$300,000. You stated you had paid a deposit of
$95,000. You told Vera Maschette that there was an opportunity for the company
to
purchase half of the block of land for the remaining $150,000. Vera
Maschette as the director of the company agreed for the company
to pay $150,000
for the company to purchase the half block. You produced to Vera Maschette a
contract of sale dated 7 November 2019
from Andersen Property Specialists, a
real estate business. The contract of sale was a false document and you had
signed the document
with a false signature of the purported vendor, Sandy Cape
Pty Ltd. On 7 November 2019 you transferred the sum of $150,000 from
the
company business account to your own account, describing the transfer as being
to, 'Andersen Trust Acc'. You obtained the $150,000
by deception. You had not
used the money to purchase the property on behalf of the company but instead had
used the money for your
own purposes.
- Dealing
with Charge 6: in December 2019 you informed Vera Maschette that there was an
opportunity for the company to make a further
purchase of land, being next to
the first parcel at 56 Woodbridge Circuit, Coronet Bay. Vera Maschette agreed
for the company to
purchase the second block of land and authorised you to make
payments for the land to the vendor. Between 12 and 18 December 2019
you made
full payments from the company business account to your own account, totalling
$133,560, describing the payments being to
the 'Andersen Trust Acc'. However,
no moneys were paid to Andersen Property Specialists. You maintained to Vera
Maschette that
you had used the money for the purchase of the land, giving her a
note to the effect that you would '100% have land contract to you
by the end of
the week'. No such contract was ever provided. On 13 December 2019 you repaid
the sum of $23,408 to the company account,
describing the payment as from
Andersen Trust account. You dishonestly appropriated the balance of the money,
totalling $110,152
for your own use.
- Dealing
with Charge 7: on 17 February 2020 you approached Daniel Hughes-Malkoun,
offering a business opportunity to purchase packs
of timber at a wholesale price
to be resold at a profit. The approach was by text message. Hughes-Malkoun had
known you since October
2019 when he was recruited by you to play for the
Kilcunda Bass Football Club. You told Hughes-Malkoun by text that you were
buying
and selling timber and that, 'I'm supplying SJD Homes and they have
ordered a heap of packs of spotted gum and Merb'. You told Hughes-Malkoun
that
the price of the packs was $2500 and that they were resold for $3900 so there
was a return of $1400 per pack. Based on your
representations, on 18 February
2020 Hughes-Malkoun transferred $12,500 to your CBA account for the purchase of
the timber. You
told Hughes-Malkoun that the timber was going to a builder
called Brenton Petrie of Officer and that the timeframe for repayment
by you was
about two weeks.
- On
3 March 2020 you paid Hughes-Malkoun the sum of $19,000 purporting to be the
repayment of the loan with profit. On 5 March 2020
you requested Hughes-Malkoun
to pay you the further sum of $11,500, purportedly for the purchase of timber.
You said the return
would be $16,500 and therefore $5000 profit for
Hughes-Malkoun. Based on your representations, on the same day Hughes-Malkoun
paid
to your bank account the sum of $11,500. On
18 March 2020 you called
Hughes-Malkoun and asked him to transfer a further $4000 to you. On 20 March
2020 Hughes-Malkoun met you
at the San Remo Hotel and paid you the $4000 in
cash. On 23 March 2020 you sent a text message to Hughes-Malkoun saying that
you
were not buying any more timber at that time due to COVID-19. You
acknowledged that you retained the sum of $15,500 for Hughes-Malkoun.
You had
obtained three payments totalling $28,000 from Hughes-Malkoun by deception. You
did not use the moneys for the purchase
of timber packs but instead used the
moneys for your own purposes. You failed to repay the balance of $9000 you had
obtained from
Hughes-Malkoun or any profit on the sale of the timber.
- Dealing
with Charge 8: on 3 March 2020 you approached another player from Kilcunda Bass
Football Club, Zachary Gorsuch, with a business
opportunity. Gorsuch had known
you for about four years. You told Gorsuch that you had bought a wholesale
timber business and were
supplying SJD Homes with timber along with other
clients. On that day you sent a text to Gorsuch offering that Gorsuch could buy
wholesale timber packs at $2000 each and they would be resold to a builder at
$3000 per pack, making a profit of $1000 per pack.
You also asked that Gorsuch
keep the deal to himself so that other players would not find out. In reliance
on your representations
Gorsuch transferred the sum of $24,000 from his Westpac
Bank account to your Commonwealth Bank account. On 23 March 2020 you sent
Gorsuch a copy of a statutory declaration stating that you had borrowed the sum
of $24,000 to buy timber and that you would repay
Gorsuch $36,000, which would
include profit.
- You
also sent a copy of an agreement signed by you dated 21 March 2020 in a similar
format as the loan agreements previously sent
to Atkins and Mahood. It
contained the following terms: that you would borrow the sum of $50,000 on 21
March 2020 to assist with
the financing of purchase of timber for your
commercial timber business, the loan would be repaid without interest 15 weeks
from
the date of signing by instalments of $500 each, and you provided security
for the loan over the same Mazda and the same Ford vehicle
referred to in
previous similar documents and 'any available business stock existing in the
Borrower's business at the time of default'.
You obtained the moneys from
Gorsuch by deception as you did not use the moneys for the purchase of timber
packs and instead used
the moneys for your own purposes. You did not repay any
of the moneys paid by Gorsuch on 3 March 2020 or any profit on those moneys.
- Dealing
lastly with Charge 9: in March 2020 you approached another player from the
Kilcunda Bass Football Club, a Justin Marriott,
with a business proposal. You
sent a text message to Marriott stating that you were running your own timber
business and were supplying
a couple of companies, you had ordered 15 packs of
spotted gum decking and it was ready for delivery, each pack cost $2500 and they
resold for $3500, you needed someone to help buy the packs and they could keep
the profit, and it would only take '2 weeks maximum
to have the money back
100%'.
- On
5 March 2020, in reliance upon those representations, Marriott agreed to invest
$20,000 and made two transfers of $10,000 each
to your Commonwealth Bank
account. On 17 March 2020 you met with Marriott at Marriott's house to discuss
a potential investment
of $100,000 in timber packs. You assured Marriott that
the investment would be returned within three months. In reliance on your
representation Marriott made two further transfers of $10,000 each to your
Commonwealth Bank account. You provided Marriott with
a draft contract in the
same format as that you had previously provided to Atkins, Mahood and Gorsuch.
On 19 March 2020 you provided
Marriott with a signed copy of the contract with a
loan amount to be $150,000, 'to assist with financing the purchase of timber for
the borrower's commercial timber business', repayable within 12 weeks. In
further reliance on your representations Marriott made
10 transfers to your
Commonwealth Bank account, totalling $102,000. The total amount paid by
Marriott to your Commonwealth Bank account
between
5 March 2020 and 2 April
2020 was $142,000. You obtained the moneys from Marriott by deception. You did
not use the moneys for the
purchase of timber packs but instead used the moneys
for your own purposes. You did not repay any of the moneys paid by Marriott
or
any profit on those moneys.
- Dealing
next with the police investigation and your arrest: in March 2020 Vera and Wayne
Machete reported you to police. On 6 May
2020 you sent a text message to Vera
Maschette stating,
“I’m so sorry about everything I got
caught up in gambling really badly and I spent all our money and lied about it.
I
know you know all the invoices are coming from my account as I’m trying
to pay it all back. My dad is going to help me get
all the money back asap. I
don’t know how far your gone with this but my family have know idea except
my dad. Please give me
a chance to pay the money back quickly I know I let you
and Wayne down terribly please.”
- On
12 May 2020 police executed a search warrant at your residence and arrested you.
You were interviewed by the police that day and
you selectively answered 'No
comment' to questions about your offending but admitted your gambling problem
and that you had sent
the text message to Vera Maschette. On 11 June 2020,
following police identification of other victims of your offending, namely
Atkins, Mahood, Hughes-Malkoun, Gorsuch and Marriott, you were arrested again.
You were further interviewed and made no comment
to questions put to you.
- Dealing
next with matters personal to you and evidence led and submissions made on your
behalf: you are now aged 56 years, you have
no prior convictions and you have
not been involved in any other offending since your arrest in this matter on 12
May 2020. Your
counsel provided me with an outline of submissions, which is
Exhibit 1; a report dated 25 April 2024 from Luke Armstrong, psychologist,
which
is Exhibit 2; a letter dated 24 April 2024 from Sandra Luxford, a therapeutic
counsellor from Gambler's Help, which is Exhibit
3; a GP mental health plan
document completed on 4 April 2024, which is Exhibit 4; and a mental health
assessment order dated 23
April 2024, which expresses the author's opinion that
you were then at high risk of suicide or accidental death, and that is Exhibit
5.
- In
addition, evidence was led on your behalf on two occasions from Mr James Harry,
the proprietor of the Waratah Bay Caravan Park,
where you had recently been
residing and working until your bail was revoked. I found Mr Harry to be an
honest and caring witness
who has shown you considerable kindness and support in
the period since your offending came to light. I have no doubt that Mr Harry
was sincere in describing your fragile state and expressions of deep remorse for
your offending. Equally, I have no doubt that he
will continue to offer his
support and friendship when you have completed your sentence and that he will do
so in the belief that
you have at least reasonable prospects of
rehabilitation.
- At
the commencement of these offences in 2019 you were aged 51 years. Your
marriage of some 30 years, which had produced four sons,
was failing. You and
your family were living in rented accommodation in Corinella. You were working
in home maintenance for a local
real estate agent and doing some gardening. The
detailed and helpful report of Mr Armstrong catalogues your early life, your
educational,
sporting and social history which is beset by signs of low
self-esteem and mental health issues, leading to heavy use of alcohol
from your
early 20s to a point where you sought to conceal the extent of your drinking
from your wife from early in your marriage.
Your psychological conditions were
exacerbated by the discovery of sexual abuse of two of your sons by a male
relative of your wife.
It seems that those events led to a deterioration in
your marriage to a point where, by the end of 2018 and beginning of 2019, you
and your wife barely spoke to one another despite living under the same
roof.
- You
commenced heavy gambling in early 2019. Mr Armstrong opines at page 8 of his
report as follows:
‘Mr Pipicelli has battled with a chronic or
persistent form of depression most of his life. He never sought treatment
because
any acknowledgement of mental illness was equated by himself and those
close to him as a weakness. In many ways this was a belief
system inherited from
his father. Mr Pipicelli instead self medicated with heavy alcohol use, on a
daily basis from early adulthood,
I would venture to suggest in fact, your
client is and was an Alcoholic for several decades. A central aspect of his
mental health
problems was amongst other features, a persistent, distorted self
image of failure, specifically entrenched, poor self esteem. This
in turn
retarded his motivation to thrive, which only perpetuated a self image that he
was an incapable husband; provider and father.
Poor mood aggravated his
psychological profile.
‘Mr Pipicelli presents with a persistent form of Major Depression,
however his diagnosis is more appropriately defined as Dysthymia
or Persistent
Depressive Disorder. I would venture to suggest that the condition has been
present for most of his life, more obviously
pervasive post 2015. The
distinction between Major Depression and Persistent Depressive Disorder is the
course of the condition.
For identification, in contrast to two weeks for Major
Depression (single episode), depressed mood for a diagnosis of Persistent
Depressive Disorder occurs “for most of the day, for more days than not,
for at least two years”.
‘Whilst there was evidence of relatively heavy gambling in the years
leading up to 2019, on the basis of his narrative; Sportsbet
records and
relative to his own personal affordability (i.e. disproportionate spending) he
[would] most certainly have developed
a pathological Gambling Disorder post
April 2019 in my view.
‘The circumstances relating to his son’s experience of sexual
abuse had the effect of accelerating depressive, premorbid
belief systems and
related disturbances in affect. I suspect that initial, temporary success in his
timber venture as a sole trader
activated an alternative reality for your client
in the aftermath of a major family catastrophe; a deteriorating marriage; and
his
own deteriorating mental health.
‘Most significantly, the image of a business success countered decades
of depressed mood. This alternate reality also created
a paradoxical image of
himself as a success to important stakeholders in his life: his children; his
wife and his social circle.
The problem was the image was a complete self
deception and the means to maintain the image, a proven, failed business
model.’
- Your
gambling habit is evident from Sportsbetting sheets which I accept reveal a
picture of gambling involving over 4500 transactions.
No doubt, as is
notoriously common amongst compulsive gamblers, you hoped to be able to repay
your dishonest gains from winnings
that never came in sufficient quantity. It
was indeed inevitable that you would be detected and would have no ability to
repay.
Your counsel tells me that you have no assets and that you have been
shunned by your father and your siblings, your former wife,
your children and
your community. Consistent with the testimony of Mr Harry, I am told that for
the past few years you have resided
at Waratah Bay Caravan Park. Over this time
there have been a number of medical episodes where you have been an inpatient in
the
psychiatric wards of various local hospitals. Some of these occasions
follow suicide attempts. You have recently been on a mental
health care plan
and were only permitted to take a limited number of tablets per day.
- It
was submitted on your behalf that there are a number of mitigating factors,
including your pleas of guilty having significant utilitarian
value, your
remorse, your prior good character and no subsequent offending, your
demonstrated rehabilitation, the substantial delay
between you being arrested
and charged and today's date, extra-curial punishment and hardship.
- I
accept that all of those matters are relevant in mitigation of sentence and that
you have observed your bail conditions since June
2020. I accept that your
mental health has further declined since then. You sought help with your
gambling habit and with your
mental health. You have abstained from gambling.
Your isolation from family and former friends and community members in the
Corinella
area has involved a form of extra-curial punishment. I am inclined to
accept that you are motivated to maintain your efforts at
rehabilitation and
that your prospects appear to be good, particularly with the support of Mr
Harry. I accept that the delay in
bringing this matter to finality has resulted
in the added stress of having the prospect of a term of imprisonment hanging
over your
head for about four years.
- It
is to your credit that you have used that time to pursue and demonstrate
rehabilitation to date and your good prospects of continuing
rehabilitation in
the future. It is submitted that, having regard to the opinions expressed and
the recent mental health issues
identified in the report of Mr Armstrong,
Verdins principles apply, particularly to reduce your moral culpability
for your offending, to lower your suitability as an appropriate vehicle
for
general deterrence and to ameliorate the serious risk of further significant
deterioration in your mental health, heightening
existing suicide risk. Those
submissions are based very substantially upon the report of Mr Armstrong, that
is, the complete report
in addition to the passage that I have already
read.
- I
accept that those factors are relevant to varying degrees to determination of
your sentence, at least in a general sense. However,
I am not persuaded
Verdins principles apply to reduce your moral culpability or to render
you an unsuitable vehicle for general deterrence. The evidence does
not
identify a sufficient nexus between your mental impairments and your offending
conduct to merit such a finding. I accept that
the combination of these factors
will make it more difficult for you to cope with a prison environment during
your sentence than
a person without your mental impairments, and that there is a
serious risk of substantial deterioration in your mental health as
a result of
your incarceration.
- I
was referred to the decision of the Victorian Court of Appeal in
R v Grossi [2008] VSCA 51, particularly at
paragraphs 47 to 57, where the court considered the relevance of gambling
addiction in sentencing in a case such
as this. I note that according to the
opinion of Mr Armstrong, your 'pathological gambling disorder' had apparently
developed 'post-April
2019', which was after you had embarked on your offending
conduct. Having regard to the judgment of the Court of Appeal, I am satisfied
that the persistence and calculated duplicity which characterised your deception
of six separate members of your own community over
more than 12 months affords
no mitigation of your moral culpability arising from your gambling addiction.
Further, your offending
conduct, extending as it did for more than 12 months and
involving victims from your own community who respected and trusted you
with
their money, was a sustained and despicable breach of the trust reposed in you
by those victims, by your community and by your
own family. You let them all
down.
- Despite
your undertaking expressed in your text message to Vera Maschette on 6 May 2020,
it is not suggested that you have any realistic
prospect of reimbursing your
victims in the foreseeable future, either alone or with the help of others. I
accept that your offending
was relatively unsophisticated and that by any
logical appraisal was inevitably going to be discovered. However, it is equally
apparent
that you had ample opportunity to reflect on the nature and extent of
your criminal conduct during the currency of your offending,
yet you persisted
in the face of full understanding of what you were doing and from whom you were
obtaining your ill-gotten gains.
You continued to present to your victims in a
manner that convinced them to trust you. You had more than adequate opportunity
to
seek help at any stage. It is necessary that I impose a sentence that
denounces your dishonest conduct and punishes you adequately
for your offending,
that I give appropriate but nuanced value to the principle of general deterrence
and that I accord sufficient
weight to the combination of mitigating factors
relied upon by your counsel.
- The
principles of parsimony and the need to promote your rehabilitation as far as
circumstances allow require that I give due consideration
to the submission on
your behalf that a community correction order alone or in combination with a
moderate term of imprisonment would
meet the justice of this matter. I have
done so, and I have indicated during the plea hearings that I am not so
persuaded. Despite
the matters in mitigation to which I have referred, I regard
your moral culpability as substantial. However, I intend to give effect
to your
seemingly good prospects of rehabilitation and the desirability of your
obtaining optimal mental health treatment in the
community in fixing a
non-parole period that will give you the chance of a significant period of
supervised release.
- In
recent days I have been assisted by both counsel in identifying current
sentencing practice.
- Taking
all those matters into consideration I sentence you as follows:
- − on
Charge 1 you are convicted and sentenced to 4 months’ imprisonment;
- − on
Charge 2 you are convicted and sentenced to 14 months’ imprisonment;
- − on
Charge 3 you are convicted and sentenced to 13 months’ imprisonment;
- − on
Charge 4 you are convicted and sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment;
- − on
Charge 5 you are convicted and sentenced to 17 months’ imprisonment;
- − on
Charge 6 you are convicted and sentenced to 14 months’ imprisonment;
- − on
Charge 7 you are convicted and sentenced to 8 months’ imprisonment;
- − on
Charge 8 you are convicted and sentenced to 8 months’ imprisonment;
- − on
Charge 9 you are convicted and sentenced to 16 months’
imprisonment.
- The
sentence of 17 months’ imprisonmernt on Charge 5 is the base sentence. I
order that four months of the sentence on Charge
2, two months of the sentence
on Charge 4, one month of each of the sentences on Charges 7 and 8 and five
months of the sentence
on Charge 9 be served cumulatively upon one another and
upon the sentence on Charge 5.
- The
total effective sentence is therefore imprisonment for 30 months.
- I
fix a non-parole period of 16 months.
- But
for your pleas of guilty I would have sentenced you to imprisonment for three
years and six months with a non-parole period of
two years and two months.
- I
declare 9 days’ pre-sentence detention as the time to be reckoned as
served on the sentence I have imposed.
- I
make the five compensation orders in accordance with the drafts that I have
received.
- Are
there any other matters, counsel?
- COUNSEL:
No, Your Honour.
- HIS
HONOUR: In this order I will repeat the same custody management issues and
suicide risk that are referred to in the custody management
issues in the
previous orders. The medical reports have already been attached so I think that
that is all that needs to be done.
- MS
ZAYDAN: As Your Honour pleases.
- HIS
HONOUR: Thank you.
- - -
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URL: http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/VCC/2024/951.html