By Patrick Begley and Sarah McPhee
Construction boss George Alex, 53, has been found guilty of a conspiracy to defraud the Tax Office of $10 million in what prosecutors described as a complicated “revolving-door” scheme.
After a six-month trial and more than a month of deliberations, the jury of nine men and three women on Tuesday morning returned guilty verdicts for Alex and three co-accused: Lindsay John Kirschberg, Gordon McAndrew and Pasquale Loccisano.
George Alex outside the NSW Supreme Court at Darlinghurst last month. Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
A fifth conspirator, Mark Ronald Bryers, had already been found guilty.
Prosecutors had alleged the group operated a construction industry labour hire business with legitimate clients including Multiplex, using a network of companies to pocket pay-as-you-go (PAYG) withholding tax from the wages and salaries of labour hire workers and office staff.
In his opening address, Crown Prosecutor Chris O’Donnell, SC, told the jury that Alex “was very much in control” of the tax fraud conspiracy and that police phone taps showed he “was the person who needed to understand and approve of any future developments” to the scheme.
“You can also hear, the Crown alleges, that he knew about the need to hide from the ATO and wanted to understand how that would be achieved,” O’Donnell said.
The court heard the conspirators retained a “substantial amount” of the tax fraud proceeds for personal benefit, including the purchase of an apartment on the Gold Coast and multiple cars.
In August, the jury found the five men guilty of conspiring to deal with more than $1 million in proceeds of crime.
It found Alex’s son, Arthur Alex, 26, not guilty of recklessly dealing with the proceeds of crime of $1 million or more.
Justice Desmond Fagan reminded the jury on Monday that the tax fraud conspiracy constituted “the great bulk of the case” and was “the main thing to be decided”.
The Commonwealth, he said, had missed out on about $125,000 a week in unpaid PAYG tax, adding up to $1 million every couple of months.
While his co-accused were already in custody after the proceeds of crime convictions, Alex was missing from the dock when the conspiracy verdict was read out, having been recently admitted to Northern Beaches Hospital to manage his withdrawal from opioids.
Alex had become addicted to oxycontin and was seeking to transition to the replacement medication buprenorphine. But his own lawyers only became aware of the admission on Monday morning.
Jeremy Cumpston, a doctor managing Alex’s withdrawal, had written letters to the hospital advocating for his patient to be treated.
“I’m not very impressed with Dr Cumpston and Mr George Alex effectively seeking to pre-empt the court,” the judge said. But he agreed on Monday to vary Alex’s bail conditions to allow him to remain in hospital until another detention hearing on Friday.
The verdict followed a number of questions from the jury on Monday, including how they should assess guilt and innocence in cases where a person was acting on instructions or had misgivings.
Alex’s barrister John Agius, SC, applied to have the jury discharged and the judge recused, submitting that Fagan’s answers to the jury’s questions lacked balance, repeating the Crown case without summarising defence arguments.
Agius argued that further instructions by Fagan to the jury on Tuesday had failed to adequately correct the alleged imbalance.
Fagan refused the applications, saying: “I’m not advocating for any assessment of the facts.”
A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for November.
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