$3.16M FRAUD INSULT
OFF TO JAIL BUT SHE WON’T SAY SORRY:
ROHAN Murphy is still numb over the multimillion-dollar fraud that nearly destroyed his family business.
The culprit – former office manager Wendy Ann Aspinall – is now behind bars, serving at least three years of an 11-year sentence. It is believed to be the biggest fraud sentence in recent Far Northern memory.
“I can’t describe it, you are bewildered,” Mr Murphy said.
“She has never said sorry – if it were me I’d want to get it off my chest.”
Aspinall, 56, was sentenced in Cairns District Court for 10 years of fraud she committed while employed by Down to Earth Demolitions, embezzling $3.16 million through cash withdrawals, phony cheques and electronic transfers between 2007 and 2017. Aspinall was discovered when Mr Murphy found two blank cheque butts in the cheque book in June 2017.
When pressed, Aspinall said she had shredded the cheque book, but that she would work for free to pay him back. “He never heard from her again,” Crown prosecutor Nicole Friedewald said.
The vast majority of the money – nearly $2.9 million – was lost to poker machines at the Reef Casino.
“She fooled herself, thinking she would take the money and pay it back later,” Josh Trevino, defending, said.
A psychological report about Aspinall described the pokies as the “ice or crack cocaine of gambling” and declare that casinos preyed upon vulnerable problem gamblers.
“She was certainly the victim of casino strategies in this regard,” Mr Trevino said.
But Ms Friedewald reminded the court that Aspinall had many opportunities to pay the company at least part of her debt.
She told the court Aspinall had won $830,000 from the casino in various jackpots and member draws. “She had the opportunity at various times,” she said.
When the fraud was discovered, Aspinall instead accused her employers of “financial irregularity” and claimed they “were using her as a cover”.
“That is just rubbing our noses in it,” Mr Murphy said after sentencing. “Until she shows remorse we are in limbo.”
Judge Dean Morzone said the Murphys and their employees were “innocent victims” to Aspinall’s “criminal behaviour, a manifestation of (her) compromised mental state.”