Lawyer guilty of dodging tax on $30k plus of ‘cashies’ from clients

A Brisbane solicitor embroiled in the Bosscher Lawyers corruption probe committed fraud by dodging tax on more than $30,000 in cash payments that his senior partners told him were bonuses.

Alexander Ralston Jones.

A Brisbane solicitor embroiled in the Bosscher Lawyers corruption probe committed fraud by dodging tax on more than $30,000 in cash payments that his senior partners told him were bonuses, a court has heard.

Alexander Ralston Jones, who is now the director of his own law firm, was one of several solicitors accused of taking hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of “cashies” from clients at the high-profile firm between 2011 and 2016.

But The Courier-Mail can now reveal that Jones pleaded guilty to a significantly lesser offence of fraud in September, the same day he had been due to go to trial with his former business partner Michael Frederick Bosscher.

Details of the sentence were subject to a non-publication order until the conclusion of Bosscher’s trial which ended late Monday when he was found guilty of aggravated fraud and falsification of documents.

Michael Bosscher was found guilty of aggravated fraud and falsification of documents.

Jones, 38, pleaded guilty to a charge of fraud to the value of $30,000 or more.

Judge Leanne Clare SC said at its core, the allegation against him was “essentially the dishonest avoidance of tax”.

“Cheating the Australian Taxation Office affects the whole community,” she said.

“Your offence spanned three to four years. You accepted between $30,000 and $40,000 off the books.

“You were told by the two senior lawyers that they were bonus payments and they were taking them.”

The Brisbane District Court heard the benefit to Jones was no more than $13,000.

“There is nothing technically wrong about cash payments as long as they are declared,” Judge Clare said.

“This was systemic conduct in the firm.

“You chose to participate in it. It was ethically and morally wrong and of course criminally dishonest.”

In 2017, another partner of the firm Timothy Meehan pleaded guilty to falsification of documents and aggravated fraud relating to him taking cash payments in excess of $200,000 and he was sentenced to 5.5 years’ jail with parole eligibility after serving 18 months in prison.

Bosscher pleaded not guilty to the same charges but was found guilty on Monday after a five week trial.

Judge Clare accepted that at the time of the offending, Jones had only been out of law school for two years and that he looked up to the senior partners including Meehan and particularly Bosscher who was his “trusted mentor”.

Tim Meehan leaving Supreme Court. Picture: Liam Kidston

Defence barrister Saul Holt KC tendered 34 references and a letter from Jones to the court, submitting that a consistent theme in the material was that Jones “blames no one but himself”.

He said those who gave the references suggested that: “part of the blame here lies with the culture of a firm and the leadership of a firm which was, respectfully, utterly corrupted from the ethical leadership that ought to have been provided to its younger staff.”

“And Mr Jones was substantially younger than both Mr Meehan and Mr Bosscher, that he looked up to them and idolised them as legal practitioners,” Mr Holt said.

“And so much water has passed under the bridge in the George Street village that is criminal law since these times, but one remembers the days when Ryan and Bosscher and Bosscher Lawyers were the firm that everyone wanted to work for no matter what.”

Mr Holt submitted that Jones had himself become “the kind of mentor he should have had in his early years”, referring to references from young staff who now work for him at his firm Jones and Associates.

Many members of the profession, including lawyers and barristers, provided references on his behalf.

“They speak to a man of fundamentally decent character who has been wracked with guilt over this for the last seven years …. and has done everything in his power to continue a career in an ethical way while becoming the kind of father we all hope we can be, as someone who is present for his three young children, none of whom were born at the time of this offending,” Mr Holt said.

“What’s astonishing to those who know the village that is George Street is that it’s particularly harsh on its own, and rightly so most of the time.

“What Mr Jones has done is, as a theme that comes through the references, he’s had the bravery to stay in that tiny village and earn the trust of his colleagues back day by day, week by week and year by year over this period of time.”

Judge Clare fined Jones $15,000 and ordered him to perform 200 hours of unpaid community service. No conviction was recorded.

“Whether or not a conviction is recorded, the regulator will need to independently review whether you’re a fit and proper person to continue to practice,” she said.

“I of course will not interfere with that process.”