Case Reports

Queensland women 38-year-old, Samantha Kissier was sentenced to six months imprisonment on 31 July 2017 for dishonestly obtaining $35,015.53 in single parenting payments over a period of three years and eight months.  Ms Kisser has been ordered to repay Centrelink the amount of $31,318.53.

On 10 July 2017, marriage celebrant Diane Caratozzolo-Waddington 58, was convicted in the Rockingham Magistrates Court of solemnising a marriage of a Rockingham couple in October 2015 in circumstances where the bride could not give consent.   

On 5 May 2017, Luke Brabin, 37, was convicted in Southport Magistrates Court on the Gold Coast of running an online poker service through the website play.pokerasiapacific.com. He was fined $10,000 for this offence. It is the first conviction under this provision of the Interactive Gambling Act.

In April 2016, after a four-week trial at the John Maddison Tower in Sydney, former company director Steven Hill was convicted of six counts of fraudulently misappropriating investor funds totaling $281,000.

On 20 April 2017, 30-year-old Hong Kong national Ka Sing Lai was sentenced in the District Court at Perth to 10 years’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to criminal charges arising from his role in a large-scale international money operation.  This money laundering operation involved a criminal syndicate, based in Hong Kong, which laundered more than $29 million in proceeds of crime in Au

On 21 December 2016, 55-year-old Tanne Joyce was sentenced to six months imprisonment after he pleaded guilty in the Perth Magistrates Court of failing to lodge five income tax returns between 2010 and 2014.

This appearance in court was the third time Joyce had been prosecuted for failing to lodge these tax returns.

On 1 February 2017, Claire Kell was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for dishonestly obtaining $90,326 in single parenting payments over a period of seven years.

During this period Kell repeatedly made false statements to Centrelink to conceal from it the fact she was living with, and later married, her de facto partner.

On 16 September 2016, 42-year-old former Australian Taxation Office (ATO) employee Andrew Hurst was sentenced to seven years and six months imprisonment after he pleaded guilty in the District Court at Maroochydore of falsely claiming GST refunds worth $1,585,413.11 to which he was not entitled.

On 9 December 2016, the master of the Papua New Guinea-flagged trawler CAPS 01, was convicted and fined $110,000 in the Darwin Supreme Court. The owners were also penalised $300,000, after posting a bond for the return of their vessel on the condition its location could be monitored by Australian Fisheries Management Authority’s (AFMA) satellite-based tracking system.

On 22 November 2016, Rayan Schanker was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment in the County Court in Melbourne for attempting to possess a commercial quantity of unlawfully imported methamphetamine (5.9kg), and with trafficking a commercial quantity (a further 1.8kg) of the substance.

On 16 September 2016, 46-year-old Lisa Bishop was sentenced in the Brisbane District Court to three years imprisonment after she pleaded guilty of defrauding the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) of $132,852, after submitting Business Activity Statements on behalf of herself and another taxpayer.

New South Wales man, 49-year-old David Porte had his sentence increased to two years and nine months imprisonment for accessing and possessing child pornography and possession of a prohibited weapon following a successful appeal of the inadequacy of his original sentence. The non-parole period is one year and six months.