When a frightened 72-year-old woman was trapped inside her burning house, Nick Karagiannis came to her rescue.
The father of three saved her from the flames of her Homebush home right before the roof collapsed, a courageous act that in 2018 earned him the fourth-highest Australian Bravery Decoration.
Video footage of the ceremony shows the 44-year-old smiling as NSW Governor Margaret Beazley awarded him the Commendation for Brave Conduct.
In the years that followed, Karagiannis became increasingly well-known in his community. Online posts praised his charity work and schoolchildren watched his inspirational speeches in which he preached that today’s work is tomorrow’s reward.
But not all his actions have been honest and admirable.
While working his regular job as general manager with Suttons Motor Group in Homebush, the car dealer secretly defrauded his employer out of half a million dollars.
The crime caused a financial disadvantage of $475,675 to the company between 2016 and 2019.
Nicholas Karagiannis smiles after receiving his bravery award in 2018.Credit: LinkedIn
Karagiannis did what he called “juggling” with Suttons’ money as he buckled under pressure to perform.
The “juggling” involved organising for customers to pay for cars through his personal bank account and reimbursing his employer. However, Karagiannis wasn’t able to catch up with those repayments.
Agreed facts tendered to the NSW District Court state Karagiannis did not “engage in the scheme for his personal enrichment”, but that he was deceptive.
The facts state he routinely agreed to pay customers more money for their trade-in cars than they were actually worth, to secure more sales at higher prices for new cars.
Karagiannis tried to conceal these losses by “juggling” money in and out of his own account, using certain customer payments and his own money to cover shortfalls.
But over three years, his debt grew.
In one example, Karagiannis wrote in the system that a $36,000 sale in December 2018 had fallen through after the customer had transferred the payment into his account and picked up the car.
Karagiannis has been praised for his charity work.Credit: LinkedIn
As Karagiannis struggled to keep track of the shortfalls, senior bosses began noticing.
In a partly recorded phone interview in March 2019, managing director Craig Sutton mentioned the issue of incorrect stock and asked Karagiannis who customers had been paying.
Karagiannis said some customers gave him cheques and others transferred money into his account.
“So I paid for other cars with it, so I’ve been juggling since July ’17,” he said, adding the money would be returned to Sutton after a loan had gone through.
But an unimpressed Sutton said the customers thought they were paying the company’s account.
Karagiannis said that “whether it was mine or yours, they didn’t really care, they trusted me”, before saying he would answer any question and Sutton would “get the truth”.
Karagiannis said he did not benefit financially from the scheme.Credit: Facebook
After NSW Police were notified, an accountant they employed found 114 registration numbers matching 179 deposits into Karagiannis’ account, totalling about $2.5 million.
Subtracting the roughly $2 million Karagiannis paid to Suttons, he owed $475,675.
In an interview with police, Karagiannis said the accounts team knew what he was doing and many people had their “finger in the pie”.
He said he gained no financial advantage, but admitted to owing money.
“I think I owe around $450,000 … half a million dollars,” he said.
After being fired from Suttons, Karagiannis founded car repair and maintenance service CrashClaim Accident Management in Homebush.
He featured on A Current Affair in 2021 when his company crowdfunded money to gift a car to former Fiji Women’s Rugby Sevens player Mereseini Leivere, the victim of a Facebook scam worth thousands of dollars.
Karagiannis pleaded guilty to dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception and will be sentenced in November.
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