Graeme Walter Miller: Fraudster financial adviser jailed for six years
A previously respected financial adviser lost his moral compass after his daughter’s suicide and then defrauded ageing couples out of $1.8m. He showed little emotion as he was led away to start his lengthy sentence. The final order before he was led away was that he pay back his victims.
Central Sydney
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A financial adviser who stole $1.8 million from his clients “lost his moral compass” shortly after his daughter committed suicide, a court heard.
Graeme Walter Miller, 60, was sentenced to six years in prison in front of his two sons for his self-managed superfund Ponzi scheme.
Judge Gregory Woods also ordered he pay back more than $1.7 million to his victims.
Judge Woods called the scheme, which ran between 2013 and 2017, “a cruel and deceitful betrayal… leading to financial disaster”.
Miller, from the Northern Rivers, did not look back as three police officers entered the Downing Centre District courtroom and sat behind him, preparing to take him into custody.
Each of the victims, the court heard, was similar – couples in their 60s and 70s who trusted Miller to invest their assets as they settled into retirement.
He misappropriated funds including $950,000, $380,000, and $250,000 from five couples, which they had worked for over decades, the court heard.
He then injected that money into his own accounts to pay for personal expenses and some of it back into the accounts of his clients to make it appear as though they were gaining good returns.
This allowed him to perpetuate the scheme, the court heard.
“Their futures have been damaged by financial stress”, Judge Woods told the court.
One couple, the court heard, worked for over four decades in Papua New Guinea in the hopes of retiring to Australia with a $500,000 nest egg.
Miller told them he would be able to give them a much better return than average super funds.
The pair made a series of transfers to his licensed company “enticingly named” CFS Private Wealth over 2013 and 2014, amounting to $950,000.
Part of that money was a $200,000 inheritance left to the woman by her father.
In 2016, when they asked for the $500,000, Miller “fobbed them off”, Judge Woods read from the court documents, “with false promises and excuses never made good”.
CFS Private Wealth was deregistered by ASIC in early 2017.
Miller worked for decades as an honest commercial adviser at AMP Society, the court heard, before he committed the frauds – but at some point something changed.
“His daughter’s suicide probably marked a turning point when he lost his moral compass,” Judge Woods said.
In an apology letter written to the court, Miller said he “will live with it for the rest of his life”.
His son told the court he still thought his father was a “caring man and loving father”.
“I believe my sister’s 15 year battle with depression and eventual suicide (in 2014) put pressure on my parents,” he wrote in a letter.
As Miller was led away in handcuffs, his sons apologised to one of the victims in the courtroom, each acknowledging graciously it had been hard for the other.
Miller pleaded guilty to all six offences.
He was sentenced to a maximum of six years and a non-parole period of four years, and will be available for release on July 30, 2024.