Former LJ Hooker franchisee Judy Nguyen pleads guilty to fraud
In a shock turnaround, a former LJ Hooker franchisee accused of misappropriating millions of dollars of clients’ money will plead guilty to several of the charges against her.
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In a shock turnaround, a former LJ Hooker franchisee accused of misappropriating millions of dollars of clients’ money will plead guilty to several of the charges against her.
The defence for Truc Thanh Le Nguyen — also known as Judy Nguyen — initially told a jury her husband had committed the crimes without her knowledge.
But just as Ms Nguyen’s County Court trial started to progress, it came to an abrupt halt, with the jury hearing on Friday the matter had been resolved.
The trial had been expected to run about three weeks.
Ms Nguyen has been ordered to return to court on Monday.
She will plead guilty to some, but not all of the 31 charges she’d faced for allegedly fraudulently converting to her own use sales deposits received from January 2015 to March 2016.
The deposits, relating to 30 Melbourne home sales, were received by her company, JNT Law Investments Pty Ltd, which traded as six LJ Hooker offices.
The largest was a $700,000 deposit paid on multiple Dandenong apartments in July 2015.
Prosecutor John Saunders said Ms Nguyen was “sole signatory” of the two Westpac accounts used in most of the transactions, as well as JNT’s officer in effective control.
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Alan Marshall, for Ms Nguyen, opened by telling the jury he did not intend to dispute the illegality of the transfers and transactions concerned, just his client’s involvement.
He said Ms Nguyen’s husband and co-accused, Tri Duc Ngo, also known as Joseph Ngo, had been the perpetrator and had already pleaded guilty.
A cervical cancer diagnosis and the birth of her fourth child had caused Ms Nguyen to step back from the couple’s real estate business during the period most of the transactions occurred, Mr Marshall said.