Lawyer admits taking $2.8 million
A retired Dunedin lawyer has admitted misappropriating investments of $2.8 million from mainly elderly clients in what appears to be a Ponzi scheme.
The Serious Fraud Office will be pressing for a starting point of eight years’ jail when his sentencing is considered, and he was told today that home detention was not an option.
Losses caused by 79-year-old John David Milne totalled about $2.3 million, Serious Fraud Office prosecutor Rachel Reed told the Christchurch District Court today when Milne pleaded guilty to 34 charges.
No summary of facts has been read to the court or provided to Judge Jane Farish who took the guilty pleas from Milne on the first day of his scheduled four-week trial.
Miss Reed said the final loss figure could be about $2 million but she said that figure would be finalised for the summary of facts, and in a report to the court for Milne’s sentencing which has been set for November 26. The report will provide figures for reparations.
Milne was smartly dressed and stood in the dock for 35 minutes while the registrar read all the complicated charges. He answered guilty to each charge, but sometimes he paused to say that some of the money had been repaid.
The offending took place in Dunedin and Christchurch from 1991 to 2012, involving 29 victims.
Milne is now an undischarged bankrupt who had practised as a lawyer in Dunedin and Christchurch from 1995, but did not hold a practising certificate in 2012. Complaints about him were heard by the Otago Lawyers Standards Committee in 2012 and referred to the Serious Fraud Office which eventually brought the prosecution.
Defence counsel Karen Feltham said Milne had been on bail without problems since the prosecution arose and applied for bail pending sentencing. He was nearly 80 and not a flight risk, she said.
Bail was opposed by Miss Reed. She said the Crown would seek a starting point of eight years when his sentencing was considered and there could be only limited reduction for his guilty pleas because they were entered late, on the opening day of his trial.
The Crown regarded the offending as very serious, especially since it was against elderly victims. One of the victims had since died.
Judge Farish remanded Milne in custody until later today when she will consider further submissions on bail. She said no report would be ordered on his suitability for home detention, ruling that out as a sentencing option.
Milne has admitted a long list of charges that he received valuable securities from clients, which were meant to be invested, but that he “fraudulently applied or intentionally dealt with the money otherwise than in accordance with his instructions”.
The amounts involved in each charge range from a few thousand dollars, up to $1.14 million.
After hearing further submissions about bail pending sentencing, Judge Farish decided to grant it for humanitarian reasons.
Category: Focus
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