Former SYC boss Michael Scott Lawson Clark jailed for $350,000 fraud of charity’s funds

This executive claimed he stole $350,000 from a homeless youth charity to cover his debts — a judge says he was funding his “illusions of grandeur”, but has the potential to redeem himself.

Clark, left, with his lawyer, pleaded guilty to all charges. Picture: Michael Marschall

• Former boss ‘stole $350,000’ from charity’s coffers, court told
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He was supposed to offer support to vulnerable, homeless youth — instead, he abused a charity’s financial system to fund his highrolling “illusions” of grandeur and social elitism.

On Friday, the District Court jailed Michael Scott Lawson Clark for more than four years for embezzling $356,528.50 from SYC, a not-for-profit organisation.

Judge Paul Muscat rejected Clark’s repeated claims he offended solely to repay mounting debts, saying he really wanted to maintain his family’s opulent lifestyle.

However, he said there remained hope the fallen executive could turn himself around, and imposed a two-year non-parole period due to his good prospects for rehabilitation.

“It’s hard not to agree with the prosecution’s submission that you were not simply living beyond your means but held illusions of grandeur and social elitism,” he said.

“You have had a massive fall, indeed you have now hit rock bottom, but your goal is to focus on redeeming yourself for what you did. I consider you have the potential to do so.”

The judge rejected Clark’s excuses, but said he still had good prospects for rehabilitation. Picture: Michael Marschall

Clark, 40, pleaded guilty to 37 counts of aggravated dishonestly dealing with documents and 39 counts of dishonestly receiving property without consent.

Between December 2015 and November 2018, he stole $300,000 from SYC’s coffers while serving as its executive.

SYC has an annual turnover of $68 million and Clark had been its director of corporate strategy since 2011.

He has a history in the political arena, having served as a ministerial adviser to both the John Olsen and Rob Kerin governments.

Clark insisted he was “not a terrible person” despite his “terrible crime”, and said he would make full restitution.

Prosecutors said he offended “simply for avarice”, pointing out the money funded his lavish lifestyle of overseas trips and expensive jewellery — not to “retire one cent of debt”.

In sentencing on Friday, Judge Muscat said Clark stole the money by writing false invoices for IT work, payable to his personal bank account.

While not “sophisticated”, the fraud was nearly impossible to prevent given Clark had power to authorise payments up to $50,000.

He noted Clark and his wife had a combined, legitimate household income of $767,894 over the period of the offending.

Combined with the stolen funds, they had a pool of $1,124,422 from which to draw, compared with “outgoings” of $934,084.

That, he said, meant Clark was more than capable of covering his debts — but only by living within their means.

“Instead of reining in your spending or trying to reduce your debt, you chose to steal in order to maintain the lifestyle you had become accustomed to,” he said.

“You were not prepared, or willing, to forego that … somewhere, along your journey in life, you lost your moral compass.”

Outside court, SYC chief executive Paul Edginton said none of the organisation’s services had been affected by the fraud, and no vulnerable youth had “suffered”.

He refused to be drawn on how he had been affected by Clark’s betrayal, given they were close personal friends.

“In times like that, my role is to make sure we keep doing what we do … as a leader, it wasn’t my job to become irrational and fall over,” he said.

“We have important work to do for people who don’t have the opportunity to do it for themselves.”