Ex-publican jailed for stealing millions from clients could have many more victims
Melbourne pub king Michael Reardon was jailed for stealing almost $4m. The Herald Sun can now reveal new allegations of financial wrongdoing — and the sweetheart deal over the trial of a slain mafia lawyer that cut his sentence.
An ex-publican who confessed to stealing almost $4m from his high-profile clientele to prop up his failing hotel empire could have many more victims, those who know him say.
Michael Hugh Reardon, also an unlicensed accountant, funnelled his clients’ cash into his own coffers for almost a decade to try to salvage some of Melbourne’s best-known watering holes.
The 65-year-old was jailed for just 12 months last year in a sweetheart deal in which he avoided a mass jail term by turning witness in a notorious murder trial of a Melbourne mafia lawyer.
But Reardon’s former friends and associates say the eight charges he pleaded guilty to — for stealing $3.6m from five victims of his North Melbourne accounting firm — barely scratched the surface of his potential crimes.
“He hasn’t left anyone alone — none at all,” said Paul McMahon, whose late brother Peter ran the Carringbush Hotel in Abbotsford with his “best mate”, Reardon.
Paul said his brother lost the pub when Reardon took $800k cash out of the venue before suddenly declaring bankruptcy in 2013.
“I think it took about 10 years off his life,” Paul said of Peter, who died in September.
“It just destroyed him.”
The Herald Sun understands at least one former business partner is preparing to make fresh allegations to police about Reardon, who once had an interest in nine popular Victorian pubs.
Iconic watering holes The North Fitzroy Arms, All Nations Hotel and The Rising Sun Hotel were among the former hotels that were on the receiving end of cash Reardon stole from customers of his accounting firm, MH Reardon and Associates.
It was a “brazenly simple process”, County Court Judge Gerard Mullaly said while sentencing Reardon to jail in July last year.
Cheques that his accounting clients and friends wrote to pay their tax bills, or returns they were owed by the ATO, were instead cashed by Reardon to pay his venues’ own tax liabilities, staff wages, and even flooring costs, between 2007 to 2013.
Court documents reveal he also logged on to his clients’ accounts to revise old tax returns, then cashed in the credits, funnelling the money into his businesses and his own family trust.
He took $3.43m over seven years from three brothers — Paul, John and David Digney — by either stealing their cheques intended for the ATO or claiming they had a higher tax liability and taking the balance.
Reardon had known the brothers and their late father for two decades, and operated as their accountant for 15 years.
He robbed $70k from a family pool and spa business and almost $21k from Maria Bortolotto, who ran Italian restaurant Cecconi’s.
“I thought something was funny when I had a refund in my super and I couldn’t find it,” Ms Bortolotto told the Herald Sun.
“I kept trying to contact (Reardon) but everyone in the office was saying, ‘No, he’s not here today’ — the run-around.”
With “alarms going off everywhere”, Ms Bortolotto called in her lawyers, who clawed back the cash from the accountant she threatened to sue.
She was the only victim to get her money back, with Judge Mullaly noting Reardon had “no capacity to repay any of the moneys now”.
It was 2013 when Reardon was finally undone, after client Paul Digney was audited by the ATO.
Court papers show that Mr Digney, who had significant tax liabilities, checked his bank accounts and realised his cashed cheques had never actually made it to the tax office.
Demanding an explanation, Reardon sent a flurry of texts telling Mr Digney he was “trying to get to the bottom of what has happened with all the returns and the money that went with them”.
“I do not have the money and expect it went to the wrong accounts,” Reardon lied.
That same year, Reardon’s hotel empire deteriorated and he was declared bankrupt.
But it wouldn’t be until 2017 that Reardon would finally be interviewed and charged.
It would take another seven years for him to be jailed, with his case marred by repeated delays due to his failing health.
Meanwhile, victims have been shocked to learn that the man they entrusted to deal with their businesses’ finances — and who spruiked a specialty of working the books in hotels — was never a registered accountant.
Instead, court documents show he piggybacked off business partner Robert Sutherland’s accreditation, enabling him to register MH Reardon and Associates with the Tax Practitioners Board in 1992.
Judge Mullaly said Reardon’s crimes spoke of “criminality at a high level”.
“The gravity is increased, in my view, because you used all the moneys to prop up your own separate businesses,” His Honour said during his sentencing remarks.
“Your hospitality and hotel businesses were failing.”
According to court papers, Reardon had a history of failing to file financial documents or comply with court orders, facing Commonwealth charges in 2008, 2013 and 2019, where he had been convicted and fined.
He was jailed over the thefts last year for a maximum four years and six months, but it’s understood he was released after his minimum 12 months, with Paul McMahon seeing him walk the streets of Abbotsford mid-year.
While behind bars, the court heard Reardon had begun studying a law degree, which was “nearing its completion”.
The court heard his ex-wife Rosemary remained “supportive” despite his crimes, and they continue to live together in a “platonic” relationship.
The Herald Sun was unable to reach Reardon for comment.
How Reardon’s sentence was slashed for a testimony he never gave
Dodgy publican and thief Michael Reardon avoided a significant jail term by turning “vital witness” in a notorious murder case.
Reardon had been facing up to 25 years’ jail for ripping $3.6m off his accounting firm’s high-profile clientele.
But he was sentenced to just 12 months behind bars after agreeing to give evidence in the trial of murdered mafia lawyer Joseph ‘Pino’ Acquaro.
Despite the deal shaving a large chunk from his jail term, the 65-year-old never gave evidence after the murder charge was dropped against accused killer Vincenzo Crupi earlier this year.
Victims who were robbed by Reardon — many of whom never got their money back — say they were “disgusted” by the deal, in which he avoided a substantial jail term for nothing, as he was never called to the stand.
Reardon’s evidence in the murder case had been described as “fundamental” to the prosecution of Mr Crupi, the County Court heard last year.
“Identification seems the central if not sole issue in the murder trial,” Judge Gerard Mullaly said during Reardon’s sentencing last year.
“You are the only direct identification witness, not of the murder itself, but of the accused being close to and surveilling the scene in the days before a shooting.”
It’s understood the accountant — who hails from a famous hotelier family — had been working at now defunct restaurant Mr and Mrs Fish, run by his wife Rosemary, just a few doors down from Mr Acquaro’s Gelobar on Lygon St, Brunswick East.
Reardon told police he saw the maintenance worker, Mr Crupi, loitering around the Gelobar in the days before Mr Acquaro was shot dead in the street, in March 2016.
Mr Crupi — who’d had a dispute with Mr Acquaro over a fire at the Gelobar two months prior — pleaded not guilty to murder.
Charges were eventually dropped against him in May this year.
In sentencing Reardon over his multimillion-dollar thefts from his accounting clients, Judge Mullaly said his evidence in the Crupi case had put him in “the most unique” circumstances.
“A discount for your co-operation must be a significant part of my sentencing synthesis,” the judge said during a pre sentencing hearing last year.
The Herald Sun had been gagged from reporting the case until now after Reardon raised concerns he could be targeted by other inmates in prison if they learned he was going to be a prosecution witness.
It’s understood he was released from jail earlier this year and sought an extension of the suppression order in July amid continued fears for his safety.
But Judge Mullaly refused his bid.
His Honour sentenced Reardon to a maximum four years and six months’ jail with a minimum of 12 months after he pleaded guilty to eight charges of theft.
He said Reardon would likely spend his time behind bars as a protected prisoner due to concerns of “violence or a surprise attack or some other misguided response from the prison population”.
Maria Bortolotto, who was one of Reardon’s five victims in his court case, described his deal to give evidence in the murder trial for a lesser sentence as “horrendous”.
“I think it stinks,” she said.
“You do the crime you face the time.
“It’s just not enough, it should have been at least 10 years.”
Graeme Aitken, an ex-detective and private investigator, has been following Reardon’s case for years on behalf of friends who the former accountant had robbed.
He labelled Reardon’s punishment as “absolutely disgusting” and said a gag order previously banning media from writing about his case had caused further concern.
“The suppression and his evidence (in the Acquaro case) allowed him to remain in the community for a long time,” Mr Aitken said.
“(His sentence) didn’t reflect on the crimes, it had no respect for the affected parties.”
Mr Aitken recalled attending Reardon’s court hearings, where he last year stepped into the elevator with the confessed crook and his lawyer.
“I said to him, ‘Michael, there is no justice’,” Mr Aitken told the Herald Sun.
At Reardon’s next court hearing, Mr Aitken said he was called to the bar table where he was made to give a promise never to approach him at court again.
Reardon was told after making his deal for a reduced sentence that his jail time could be increased on appeal if he failed to assist in the murder case.
But the Office of Public Prosecutions told the Herald Sun it wouldn’t be appealing for a harsher sentence.
“Rather than fail to fulfil the undertaking he made to the court to give evidence in accordance with his statement, Mr Reardon was not required to give evidence due to the discontinuance of the Crupi matter,” an OPP spokeswoman said.
“In these circumstances, the option to appeal the sentence does not arise.”
Originally published as Ex-publican jailed for stealing millions from clients could have many more victims
