Melinda Trembath: Melinda’s Gluten Free Goodies boss in court

The Brisbane owner of a successful gluten-free baked goods business has been sentenced for a ‘staggeringly sophisticated’ scheme.

A Brisbane businesswoman who owns a successful supplier of gluten-free baked goods participated in a scheme to defraud the ATO of $3.6m by uttering forged documents, a court has heard.

Salisbury woman Melinda Jane Trembath, 45, pleaded guilty in Brisbane District Court on Monday to three counts of uttering a forged document and one count of influencing a Commonwealth official.

The court heard the offending was at the behest of a bankrupt family friend who owned several medical research companies conducting research into a compound to treat cancer.

The scheme involved lodging false documents in order to fraudulently claim the Federal Government’s research and development tax incentive using two entities, Venika Biotech Pty Ltd and Arana Biotechnology Pty Ltd.

The fraudulent documents were intended to indicate Venika had spent $12m in developing the compound, with the effect the company was eligible for a $3.6m rebate upon lodgement of its tax return.

Melinda Trembath, owner of Melinda’s Gluten-Free Goodies, depicted in 2012. Picture: File

Trembath, owner of Melinda’s Gluten-Free Goodies, which supplies products to bakeries, was made a director of the two companies in July 2017, a month before their returns were lodged.

However, her appointment was backdated to give the appearance of legitimacy to the three documents she uttered.

They were a forged loan agreement between Venika and Arana, worth $10m; a forged invoice from Arana charging Venika $300K in project management fees; and a forged purchase agreement with a Chinese company for pharmaceutical agents and ingredients.

The court heard the purchase agreement was based on a “precedent” document Trembath had from her own business.

The first two documents were uttered on or about September 26, 2017, after the ATO had begun it’s investigation into the matter, while the third was uttered on or about November 21, 2017.

The ATO official was influenced on September 26, 2016, by Trembath producing a legitimate Westpac transaction extract to support a claim for a non-existent payment of $120,000 for consulting fees.

The court heard Trembath, who had no prior criminal history, used that good character to enable the commission of the offences as she was “only able to be director because of her prior good character”.

While it was conceded she was not the instigator of the scheme, she was nevertheless an essential part of its operation, it was submitted, because she “took active steps to cover up” the offending and “sat idly by while a fraud was perpetuated”.

Defence counsel Daniel Caruana argued his client played only a small part of the fraud, uttering only three documents (four counting the legitimate but misrepresented Westpac transaction extract) in the context of a “staggeringly sophisticated” scheme where dozens of documents were tendered.

He said although Trembath knew the documents were fraudulent, she believed they were in pursuit of a “noble” end, that of developing an effective cancer treatment.

She felt “acute betrayal” when it was discovered the $3.6m was actually going towards a house deposit on a “mansion” for the instigator of the fraud.

He argued Trembath had already suffered a “great deal” by way of deteriorating mental health and stress.

Judge Orazio Rinaudo concurred, sentencing her to an 18-month head sentence, suspended upon entering into a $2000 good-behaviour bond, which will be in operation for two years.

Convictions were automatically recorded.