Justin Scavo fronts court over misappropriation from trust fund

A disgraced Melbourne realtor siphoned $185k from hopeful homeowners’ trust accounts to place bets and prop up another business.

Justin Scavo has been jailed for four months for raiding $185k from the trust accounts of prospective home buyers while he served as the director of South Morang’s Revolve Real Estate.

The director of a Melbourne real estate agency who stole $185,000 in house deposits to partly fund his gambling has been jailed.

Justin Scavo, 40, failed in his bid to avoid time behind bars so he could look after his elderly mother.

The Mill Park man was on Monday sentenced to four months imprisonment and a two-year community corrections order after early pleading guilty in the County Court to 11 charges of deficiency in a trust account and one of wrongful conversion of trust accounts.

He raided $185,320 from the trust accounts of prospective home buyers while he served as the director of South Morang’s Revolve Real Estate, from April 2018 to August 2019.

The money was paid for by clients as deposits for property in Doreen, Thomastown and Kinglake.

However the deposits were never paid.

Former real estate agent Justin Scavo, of Mill Park, has gone to jail for stealing $180,000 in clients' trust account cash., Picture: Supplied

Two bank accounts were frozen and a statutory manager was appointed following inspection of the company’s business premises and records on four occasions in 2019.

The balance of the trust account, upon freezing, was $6505. Of the $185,320 in house deposits, Scavo diverted $96,305 into two of his personal accounts and later into other accounts.

Between April and May 2018, he made 64 payments totalling $4878 to Digi Markets Malta and there were 28 payments to TAB, valued at $1378.

Judge Gerard Mullaly said while there were mitigating factors in Scavo’s offending, a combined sentence of jail and CCO was needed to denounce his conduct and deter others.

He said Scavo used his clients’ money as if it was his own in order to secure his financial position, keep his business afloat and gamble.

Scavo told the court that since the death of his father from cancer, he had been caring for his 74-year-old mother, who struggled with depression and anxiety.

The Victorian Property Fund paid out $96,305 to those affected by Scavo’s offending.