Noel Dona confesses to swindling almost $300,000 at Trinity Realty Harris Park
A former real estate agent and soccer club president has admitted defrauding clients by almost $300,000 after he withdrew funds from strata groups across Sydney and the Central Coast.
Police & Courts
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Former Sydney Kings mascot and real estate director Noel Dona has admitted to swindling$247,000 by illegally writing cheques from strata groups when he managed properties from his western Sydney agency.
Dona was initially fighting 11 counts dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception after he made illegal transactions at Trinity Realty in Harris Park, which covered property and strata management.
However the Granville Waratah Soccer Football Club president pleaded guilty at Parramatta Local Court on Monday when his hearing was due to begin.
Eleven other counts for the same offence were withdrawn.
The former sole director fraudulently withdrew funds from strata owners’ corporations between October 2017 and April 2018.
Court documents reveal the 57 year old wrote unauthorised cheques to multiple accounts including his own, Option Development Lands Fund, Tovaform and Urban Property Servicewithout the owners’ corporations permission.
He was Trinity’s sole authorised signatory to each of the strata groups’ trust accounts. Properties he targeted comprised villas and units Guildford Rd and King St in Guildford, villas at Osborne Rd at Marayong, and apartment blocks at Harris St in Harris Park, Station St in Dundas, Peggy St at Mays Hill, and Noberta St at The Entrance.
Dona admitted he took $42,000 from the owners’ corporation at The Entrance but never paid it back.
The illegal transactions were recorded under the guise of carrying out maintenance work such as landscaping, roof work, painting, renovations and replacing a substation.
Court papers show Dona repaid some funds but $247,000 remains outstanding.
During one exchange with a client at Gosford, Dona confessed that he deducted $35,000 for “a pressing personal expense” before he repaid the sum.
Marion St-based Trinity Realty was deregistered in July 2020.
Dona held a real estate agent’s licence until September 2019.
NSW Fair Trading, which prosecuted the case, wrote to Dona four times in 2018 when it invited him to participate in a formal interview, but it never took place.
The offence carries a two-year jail sentence in the local court or an $11,000 fine.
Dona will be sentenced on November 9.
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