By Liam Mannix and Adam Cooper
Damien Mantach, the former Liberal Party state director for Victoria, has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to defrauding the party of $1.55 million, partially in an attempt to save his disintegrating marriage.
He will be eligible for parole after two years and eight months.
When the sentence was read out by Judge Liz Gaynor of the Victorian County Court on Tuesday morning, a man in the courtroom was heard to say "Oh, bloody hell."
Judge Gaynor told Mantach, who was dressed in a dark suit and blue tie, that "the only option open to this court is a term of imprisonment".
Disgraced former state director Damien Mantach will be eligible for parole after two years and eight months.Credit:
However Mantach's remorse, willingness to come forward and cop to all his offending once he was found out, and failing marriage, were all taken into account as mitigating factors, the judge said.
Mantach stood steady in the County Court dock as the judge read his sentence, his face unreadable.
Mantach, 42, pleaded guilty in May to 15 charges of obtaining a financial advantage by deception, related to pocketing 53 payments from Liberal coffers between May 2010 and January 2015.
Each charge carried maximum penalties of between 10 and 20 years in jail.
Damian Mantach spent $611,000 to buy the Gusto Cafe in Queenscliff, which his wife Jodie ran.Credit: Simon O'Dwyer
Where the money went:
- Gusto Cafe, owned by Mantach's wife: $611,031
- Shares: $506,641
- Motor vehicles: $81,859
- Home loan repayments: $45,000
Mantach was caught after the Liberal party started an investigation into apparent overspending on election campaigns. The investigation identified some suspect invoices; when they were taken to Mantach, he made a full confession.
Former Liberal Party state director Damien Mantach has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to defrauding the party of $1.55 million
The Liberals have so far managed to claw back about a third of the money Mantach took.
The fraud relied on a company Mantach set up which wrote false invoices to the Liberal party. When the party paid those invoices Mantach pocketed the money.
He also had a legitimate business inflate submitted invoices so a levy could be skimmed off the top.
At an earlier hearing, Judge Gaynor was told Mantach and wife were in the midst of a marital breakdown at the time of the offending.
The judge was told that the frauds – the proceeds of which Mantach used to buy the cafe, as well as shares, a car, and make repayments on his home in Ocean Grove – were his way of trying to address the problem.
"It was never actually about greed … it was not about that for me," Mantach told police when he was arrested, the court heard.
"I had a number of personal issues that I was not dealing with properly and when I took money it basically relieved pressure in my personal life … it was an anaesthetic. I didn't need the funds for the obvious thought of material gratification."
Much of the money Mantach stole went into Cafe Gusto, a Queenscliff cafe he bought to please his wife Jodie, who ran the venue.
Mantach admitted his offending in August last year, and was kicked out of the family home the next day.
His marriage was now destroyed, and his relationship with his daughters difficult.
His marriage had run into difficulties when he moved the family to Tasmania in 2005 when he became the Liberal's state director there.
His wife eventually moved back to Victoria without consulting Mantach, leaving him to become distressed and lonely, and turn to drink.
Mantach later tried to patch things up with his wife, but when he was offered a role as Liberal Victorian deputy campaign director he felt he couldn't turn it down.
"You said you found the position combative and nasty, but felt you had no option but to stay, as politics was all you knew," the judge said in sentencing him.
"You struggled with the long hours of work, the continuing deterioration in your marital relationship and the distancing from your daughters due to your work commitments."
Since his arrest Mantach has worked as a support worker in prison, teaching other inmates about politics.