Christine Hogan, Aaron Baslangic, Frances Walshe: The Victorians caught stealing from their organisations
From bookkeepers to executives, these Victorians were busted stealing from the places that trusted them with a role in the running of their organisations.
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Organisations and businesses take many people to run them effectively, these people all need to trust each other.
These Victorians were caught breaching the trust of their workplaces and voluntary organisations big time.
From fleecing millions to fund their lavish lifestyles to taking thousands to get in good with family members, these thieves just couldn’t keep their hands of funds that weren’t theirs to take.
Christine Hogan
A Templestowe bookkeeper who “stole” years of her boss’ retirement fund was spared jail after transferring $140,000 of his money into her personal bank account.
The 67-year-old was sentenced to a two-year community corrections order with 300 hours of community work after she transferred the loot to her personal bank account when looking through her former employer’s bank records.
Hogan fleeced a company which provides signs for real estate agencies while performing subcontracted bookkeeping between June 2011 and July 2017.
Hogan told investigators at the time her employer asked her to transfer money, by withdrawing cash and giving it to him but it was revealed Hogan’s bank account records did not match the cash withdrawals she claimed had occurred.
Judge Angela Ellis said Hogan’s offending was a “gross breach of trust” and believed there was a “degree” of planning involved.
Hogan knew the victim for 25 years and spent a lot of time with them in the past 10 years and said prior to the offending considered her a friend.
Hogan was ordered to pay back her boss approximately $112,366.
Hogan, with no criminal history, was convicted and placed on a two-year community corrections order.
Candice Jane Dean
Dean fleeced a total of $216,327.80 from the Mazda and Mitsubishi dealership in Sale where she was working as an administrations manager and transferred money via electronic payments from the businesses’ Westpac bank account into her own personal ANZ account.
She created false invoices using legitimate business payee details, but diverted payment to her own bank account.
The manager of the dealership told the court through a statement he had tried to employ two assistants to help Dean with her workload but had to let them go after Dean said she was unhappy with their work.
In October 2021, Dean continued taking advantage of her workplace and drafted an email to Liberty Finance, purporting it to be from her boss.
The email contained false and inflated details of her income to support an application for a loan.
Dean’s defence said some of the money had been used for medical treatment after she was diagnosed with endometriosis and had a fallopian tube removed.
They continued and said Dean had taken the money to “pay off debts” before revealing this was for car payments, however they were unable to provide any evidence this was the case.
The court heard Dean also claimed the money was used to support her second husband and his children who, according to her, “weren’t the fondest of (her)”.
Dean said in a statement she was “ashamed” of her actions.
Aaron Baslangic
A former Coles executive was struggling with mental health issues at work before siphoning nearly $2m from the corporate giant to fund a lavish lifestyle that included loading up on luxury retail brands.
Aaron Baslangic fleeced Coles by making 14 fraudulent transactions between January and July 2019 into multiple bank accounts — the biggest sum in a single transaction being more than $413,000.
between January and July 2019 into multiple bank accounts — the biggest sum in a single transaction being more than $413,000.
He was sentenced to three and a half years’ jail, with a minimum of 20 months.
Baslangic, of Sandringham, siphoned the stolen money into his eight personal bank accounts through a variety of methods, including creating fake emails from his supervisors to authorise payments to a fictitious business, and to real estate and car companies.
The offending occurred between January and July 2019, while Baslangic was working as the head of strategic initiatives for Coles Online and had authorisation to make external payments of up to $75,000 but could make bigger payments with supervisor permission.
Baslangic splashed the cash on rental properties, a lease on a BMW car and on retail goods from luxury brands such as Jimmy Choo, Cartier and Louis Vuitton.
He did not stop his offending until he was discovered by Coles, who connected the suspicious transactions totalling $1,978,550 to his personal bank accounts.
Baslangic has paid back some of the money, but not all.
Judge Duncan Allen said a combination of circumstances, extreme financial and work pressure, and issues at home heightened Baslangic’s offending.
He was sentenced to three and a half years’ jail, with a minimum of 20 months.
Aphrodite Myron
A former employee of an electronics giant stole millions of dollars from her employer by doctoring consumer complaint claims and feeding money through bank accounts in her family’s name, blowing it all on the punt.
Aphrodite Myron, 58, fleeced home appliance company Hisense of more than $3.38m over eight years and hundreds of separate transactions to fuel a gambling addiction.
of more than $3.38m over eight years and hundreds of separate transactions to fuel a gambling addiction.
Myron was employed by the Knoxfield-based company as a customer service manager during the period of offending and was responsible for resolving customer issues which reached a consumer complaints body.
From 2014 to 2021, the Roxburgh Park woman would email Hisense’s finance director under the pretence a consumer complaint had been upheld by the body and claim that Hisense was required to pay compensation.
It did so, to 35 separate bank accounts set up in Myron’s, her husband’s, and her children’s names.
Over the eight years, Myron stole $3,383,56.96 by way of more than 1000 transactions.
She used the money exclusively to gamble.
Judge Nola Karapanagiotidis accepted Myron was a “hardworking, generous person” and “very family orientated”.
She acknowledged the “pernicious and exploitative” gambling industry which had its hooks in the offender.
“But we’re dealing here with a very significant amount of money over a substantial period of time in the context also of there being a breach of trust,” Judge Karapanagiotidis said.
Myron was sentenced to four years and one month in prison, with a non-parole period of two years and two months.
Frances Walshe
Frances Walshe A former Melbourne High business manager, 65, was thrown in the slammer in March for at least 14 months for her decade-long deception in which she stole more than $432,000 from the prestigious school to feed her gambling addiction.
County Court Judge Peter Lauritsen told Walshe she had abused the trust given to her in her position which saw her oversee the school’s $20m annual budget and allowed her full access to its bank accounts without a secondary authorisation.
The grandmother’s crimes were not uncovered until a new principal, Tony Mordini, took over at the all boys’ school and began questioning the finances.
After months of fobbing off the principal Walshe gave the principal the security token and he was able to see the accounts and changed the process so she was no longer a signatory to payments or transfers.
The court heard the principal then worked with the Education Department and discovered errors in the school’s financial documents.
Walshe’s offending all came to a head when she was confronted in a meeting in November 2021 where she admitted to stealing the money.
Inquiries found Walshe nicked a total of $432,546.88 in 264 transactions between 2012 and 2021.
Walshe pleaded guilty to 10 charges of theft and a single count of obtaining financial advantage by deception.
“You gambled your salary and committed these offences to fund your expenses of daily living,” Judge Lauritsen said.
He sentenced her to a two-year jail term, but set a non-parole period of 14 months.
Walshe was not ordered to pay back the stolen funds.
Travis Austerberry
In total he took $479,695 by way of 271 separate thefts from Belvoir Park Golf Club in Ravenswood when he was treasurer there between April 2020 and November 2022.
Austerberry used another worker’s login details, which were pre-filled on a computer, to approve transactions disguised as tax payments to his own bank account.
He used the money to gamble in “significant and increasing quantities,” Judge Geoffrey Chettle said.
A query about one payment by the club led to an audit which uncovered his crimes.
The court heard Austerberry gambled on horses when he was 16 years old, and by 18 had begun to put more and more money on the line.
At times he gambled “tens of thousands of dollars a day” and his “disorder” was aggravated by betting agencies incentivising him with extra money and invitations to corporate boxes at sporting events.
Austerberry pleaded guilty to theft and was sentenced to three years in prison with a non-parole period of two years.
Teresa Tavoletti
A family was forced to pull their special needs child out of private school after a trusted aunt and sole bookkeeper siphoned nearly $1.7m from their small business to fund her gambling addiction.
Teresa Tavoletti fronted the County Court in October over the rort that carried on for nearly seven years, that she would have continued if she hadn’t been busted.
over the rort that carried on for nearly seven years, that she would have continued if she hadn’t been busted.
She sentenced the 62-year-old to three years and six months in prison, with a minimum non parole of two years and six months.
In 2011, Simon and his wife Cara Tavoletti employed Simon’s aunt Teresa Tavoletti as a bookkeeper for their business OSL Concreting and Constructions that completed concrete slabs for suburban homes.
Tavoletti was the only person employed or contracted by the company to manage its books, payments and receipts.
Until 2018, the company regularly used cheques to pay its suppliers. Tavoletti would prepare and draft the cheques and present them to Cara to sign.
Although Cara was required to authorise company payments, she trusted Tavoletti and relied on what she told her regarding which payments to authorise.
Tavoletti siphoned nearly $1.7m between October 2013 and June 2023.
She deposited the cheques into her personal ANZ Bank accounts at various ANZ Bank branches on her way home from work.
Due to the fraud Cara Tavoletti said she had to pull her daughter, who has special needs, from a private school because her family couldn’t afford to pay for her education.
The offending came unravelled when a customer service specialist at the Frankston branch of the Bank of Queensland was alerted to a discrepancy on the signature of a cheque number and rang Cara to confirm whether she had written it.
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