Jamie Morgan: ABC whistleblower admits to defrauding Water NSW
Jamie David Morgan was once praised by the ABC for blowing the lid on the state government during a Four Corners story. Now the former cop has admitted to defrauding taxpayers.
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A former cop who was once praised as a whistleblower by the ABC’s flagship Four Corners show has admitted to dishonestly rorting the NSW government out of more than $20,000 by forging documents to pretend he had finished a university degree.
Jamie David Morgan, 38, on Monday pleaded guilty to two counts of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception, three weeks after his lawyers first appeared for him at Queanbeyan Local Court.
The court has previously heard Morgan is a former police officer, and court records show he in 2009 started working as the manager of strategic investigations for the Department of Primary Industries before transferring to a similar role with Water NSW.
A statement of agreed facts says Morgan was in 2014 given approval to start a Graduate Diploma in Public Administration at the University of Sydney.
Morgan never paid his fees, police later found, but in 2016 was reimbursed for $20,325 by submitting a falsified university transcript, which Water NSW accepted as genuine.
In 2018, a police investigation found Morgan had enrolled in the course, but never completed it, and had been excluded from the university for failing to attend and for failing to pay fees.
University officials examined the transcript Morgan sent to his boss, and quickly determined it to be false, according to documents filed in court.
Morgan also admitted to buying more than $3000 worth of camera gear from JB Hi-Fi on his work credit card, before returning it at another branch and having the refund paid into his personal bank account.
Doing so deprived Water NSW of the money for nearly two months, during which Morgan resisted repaying the money.
Morgan told his work at the time that he accidentally purchased the camera on his work credit card, rather than his personal credit card, and said he would only repay the money from the camera gear once his university fees were paid.
Police investigating the fraud complaint against Morgan found he had just $7.50 in his account before buying the camera gear and having the refund directed into his personal bank account.
In 2017, Morgan appeared on a Four Corners show where he was critical of his former employee, saying it had “no appetite for compliance” with laws governing farmers misuse of water.
Magistrate Roger Clisdell on Monday accepted Morgan’s guilty pleas and transferred his sentencing proceedings to Sydney to avoid the prospect of Morgan’s former police colleagues having to prosecute him.