Director of Public Prosecutions v Zhang

[2024] VCC 409

IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA

AT MELBOURNE

CRIMINAL DIVISION

Revised
Not Restricted
Suitable for Publication

CR-23-01312

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

v

LEONIDAS MINOPOULOS

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JUDGE:	HER HONOUR JUDGE GWYNN
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne
DATE OF HEARING:	12 March 2025
DATE OF SENTENCE:	3 April 2025
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	DPP v MINOPOULOS
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2024] VCC 409

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:Criminal law

Catchwords:   Make false document; Obtain financial advantage by deception; Theft; Attempt to obtain financial advantage by deception

Legislation Cited:  Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic);

Cases Cited:

Sentence:  

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APPEARANCES:	Counsel	Solicitors
For the DPP	Mr M. Wilson	Office of Public Prosecutions
For the Offender	Ms K. Kothrakis	Doogue and George Criminal Lawyers

HER HONOUR:

1Leonidas Minopoulos, you have pleaded guilty on indictment to single charges of make false document, obtain financial advantage by deception, theft, and attempt to obtain financial advantage by deception.  Charges 1, 2 and 3 on the indictment are rolled- up charges.

2In sentencing you for these crimes, I must have regard to the maximum penalties for the offences you have committed.  Make false document, obtain financial advantage by deception and theft each carry a maximum penalty of 10 years' imprisonment.  Attempt to obtain financial advantage by deception carries a maximum penalty of five years' imprisonment. 

3These maximum penalties reflect the seriousness with which Parliament regards each of these offences.

4The circumstances of your offending are set out in a document entitled 'summary of prosecution opening' dated 26 March 2024.  This is an agreed document and represents your acceptance of the elements of the offences to which you have pleaded guilty, as well as the factual basis on which I am to sentence.

5I will not repeat the entire summary as it is a matter of record, but in brief terms, the offending that gives rise to these charges occurred from 10 December 2018 to 10 October 2020, at which time you were aged between 29 and 31 years of age. During this period, you were employed by Partners Wealth Group (hereinafter referred to as 'PWG') as a paraplanning and compliance manager.

The Offending

6Part of your role at PWG was to receive invoices from external stakeholders and forward them to the billing team at PWG to be processed and paid.  Your offending related to invoices issued by TNW Solutions.

7Whilst in this role, you committed the offending on the indictment in three separate ways

8Firstly, upon receipt of invoices from TNW Solutions, you would alter the account details of TNW Solutions as shown on the invoice to reflect your own Commonwealth Bank of Australia bank details. On one occasion, you also increased the amount said to be owing on the invoices.  After making these alterations, you would then forward the invoices to PWG's billing team for payment, who would transfer the requested amounts into your account, rather than that of TNW Solutions.

9You offended in this manner on some eight occasions, which forms part of Charge 1 (make false document) and all of Charge 2 (obtain financial advantage by deception). In total, you obtained $94,303 by deception from this method of offending.

10On one further occasion, on 2 September 2019, you created a fraudulent tax invoice purportedly from TNW Solutions, but which included your personal bank details, requesting payment of $16,148, and emailed it to the PWG billing team. However, this invoice was never paid out, so you did not receive those monies. This occasion is included in Charge 1 (make false document) and accounts for Charge 4 (attempt to obtain financial advantage by deception).

11Secondly, in terms of your methodology, you falsified invoices in order to conceal your offending by recouping amounts still owed to TNW Solutions by PWG.  You altered genuine invoices from TNW Solutions to increase the amounts owed, as well as created false invoices for payment to TNW Solutions.  After emailing these invoices to the billing team, PWG would then pay out the altered or fake invoices to TNW Solutions.

12You offended in this manner on two occasions, which account for part of Charge 1 (make false document).

13The third mechanism of your offending accounts for Charge 3 of theft.  On three occasions, invoices you forwarded to the billing accounts in their genuine form were paid by the billing team into your account rather than that of TNW Solutions. This was because the billing team had previously been provided your bank account details on an invoice from TNW Solutions and used those details to make the payments. The amounts transferred into your personal bank account in this way totalled $31,883.50. You retained these funds that were transferred into your account by mistake and made no attempt to return them to PWG.

14Once you received the funds, you would transfer monies into various savings accounts, credit cards, to friends or relatives and to your online betting accounts.

15There were occasions when you transferred money from your personal bank account to that of TNW Solutions, with the reference being to PWG invoices to conceal missing funds from your employer and TNW Solutions.

16You were arrested on 14 April 2023 at your home by appointment and were interviewed at the Box Hill police station. To your credit, you made fulsome admissions in this interview, giving somewhat of an explanation for the offending, being the breakdown of a long-term relationship and the financial stress that put you under.  You claim you offended in this way to obtain an interim loan for yourself and say that you had every intention of paying back the monies when you had them available. However, you also say things spiralled out of control.  You apparently used the money you obtained to gamble and perhaps, almost inevitably, lost it all.

Offence gravity and victim impact

17This is obviously serious offending.

18As referred to earlier, Charges 1, 2 and 3 are 'rolled up' charges.  Rolled-up charges can only proceed on a guilty plea and with the offender's agreement and allow more than one instance of offending do be dealt with in the one single charge. I must still consider all of the circumstance of the offence and the offender.  

19Yours is preplanned, systematic and somewhat protracted offending.

20I accept that the quantum was not at the higher end for offending of this nature. However, this matter involves the calculated theft and obtaining of financial advantage by deception from your employer, who had given you responsibility over billing and therefore had placed trust in you.  You breached this trust by using your employer's funds as your personal piggy bank and did so for a protracted period of time of some 22 months. I see this as particularly egregious given you are a qualified accountant and were employed as a paraplanning and compliance manager at a financial planning firm.  Accountants and financial planning services are subject to professional ethical rules because of the power you are given over the finances of others. You abused this power for your personal gain.

21There is context to your offending, but not an excuse. Your moral culpability would appear to be high.

22General deterrence and denunciation are important sentencing objectives.

Plea of guilty

23The Sentencing Act obliges me to take into account the stage at which you entered your guilty plea. This matter resolved at the first committal mention at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on 1 August 2023, representing a plea made at the earliest opportunity.

24There is clear value in saving witnesses of the need to give evidence and utilitarian value in saving the community the expense of contested proceedings. 

25In addition, prior to being criminally charged for this offending, you entered into a civil settlement agreement with PWG for the return of misappropriated funds, which was paid out fully by June 2023.

26Your full admissions to police are also indicative of taking responsibility for your actions and the payment of the civil settlement goes toward compensating PWG for your misconduct.

27Overall, I am satisfied that you are remorseful for your offending.

28These factors will be taken into account in your favour.

29There is some delay in the finalisation of this matter given the investigation commenced in 2021 and you were not interviewed by Police until April of 2023. Clearly you are not being sentenced until April of 2025.  Whilst I appreciate that at least the delay between being aware of police interest and your sentencing may have been a source of stress, I do not see this as being a significant factor in the sense that complicated financial matters often take time to investigate and, since being charged, a number of adjournments of the proceedings have been at your request.

30I turn now to your personal circumstances.

Personal Circumstances

31Your personal circumstances have been helpfully outlined in defence submissions dated 6 March 2025 and the report of psychologist, Danielle Kocic, dated 5 August 2024.

32You were born in Australia to parents of Greek heritage and are currently 34 years old.  Your father works as a dentist and your mother as a pharmacist.

33You grew up in a traditional Greek household in Lower Templestowe and then Balwyn. You have one older brother, Dean. Your childhood was described as a positive one, your parents remain together, and your family was generally of means.

34Education was the focus in your family, and you went to high school at Carey Grammar School, achieving good academic results and sporting accolades.  You worked at Woolworths and other retail stores throughout your high school years.

35After high school, you completed a Bachelor of Commerce at Deakin University, before undergoing a Masters in Finance, majoring in Accounting. You felt considerable pressure to be a 'success.'

36Whilst completing your Masters degree, you were offered a junior accountant role at your workplace, finance company Findex. You worked there for six years, in different areas of the business.  In 2018, you left Findex and commenced working at PWG, the victim in these proceedings, as a paraplanning manager. You were later promoted to an ongoing fulltime role as the head of paraplanning and compliance.

37Whilst you say you resigned, maintaining your employment with PWG was untenable in the context of your offending being identified. You subsequently spent some time not working in the financial industry.

38More recently, you have established your own consulting business with a friend, which you report is profitable. You also have a paid role as a senior assistant coach at the South Melbourne Soccer Club.

39You report to Ms Kocic that you were involved in a seven-year romantic relationship, which ended in early 2019. You say that there was a significant financial burden placed on you in this relationship, as your ex-partner did not work.

40This leads to the circumstances that led up to this offending.  You report having been under financial stress, increasingly relying on alcohol and escalating gambling which worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic, and you were working from home.  You report initially offending to repay a debt owed to friends after you took money from a joint account and lost the money gambling.  What was apparently intended to be a 'stop-gap' or temporary loan for immediate financial relief, became a much bigger enterprise, spanning close to two years, as I have said, and involving over $100,000 in misappropriated funds.

Prospects of rehabilitation

41You have no prior criminal history.

42In the aftermath of your offending, you report having attended Alcoholics Anonymous and ceasing consuming alcohol. A letter authored by Dr Gabriele Gottschild dated 27July 2024 confirms treating you from 2006 in relation to various medical issues and alcohol and gambling issues since 2020.  A number of referrals were made, but you did not pursue them all.  Dr Gottschild has not seen you since November of 2022.

43You also placed yourself on a lifetime ban on betting applications and report not having gambled since early 2019.

44In terms of your mental health, you deny any formal mental health diagnosis. However, psychologist, Ms Daniela Kocic, opines that at the time of her assessment you presented with major depressive disorder, alcohol use disorder and gambling disorder.  Ms Kocic considered that your problematic alcohol use was a form of self-medication for your distress, which was caused by 'ongoing financial strain, intimate relationship issues, unaddressed depressive symptoms and gambling'.[1]  Both your alcohol use disorder and gambling disorder appear to have been severe in the lead up to the offending, however, at the time of your assessment by Ms Kocic, she considered you to be in sustained remission from both your alcohol use disorder and gambling disorder.

[1] Report of Danielle Kocic, dated 5 August 2025, paragraph 101.

45According to Ms Kocic, your general risk of offending is classed as low.  As well as an absence of negative factors, you also have many proactive factors that bode well for your rehabilitation, being residing with your parents, running your own business, the support of your current partner and the absence of current financial strain.

46Whilst it would appear that you have not been entirely truthful about your offending with your current partner, you have been in a relationship for two years, which you report as positive and stress-free.

47You resigned from PWG in November 2020, you ended your lease in Armadale and moved in with your parents.   A character reference written by your mother, Koula Minopoulos, has also tendered on your plea. Your mother describes the offending as out of character for someone who had excelled in his early life and was well equipped to continue to succeed in adulthood.  She speaks of the positive changes she has seen in you since the offending, and she believes that you are remorseful.

48I accept that you are well supported by your mother who did attend your plea hearing and that your relationships with other family members and your partner provide foundation for your continued recovery.

49Given your lack of criminal history, the risk assessment, unchallenged, conducted by Ms Kocic, positive changes in your lifestyle, particularly relating to alcohol use and gambling, financial reparation to PWG and your insight, in my assessment, your overall prospects of rehabilitation can be described as positive.

50The weight to attach in the sentencing task to the principles of specific deterrence and protection of the community are each lessened.

Sentencing Submissions

51Your counsel contends that the court could consider a sentence which does not include your immediate imprisonment.

52The Crown submit that general deterrence and denunciation are very significant sentencing principles in this matter, but having regard to all the circumstances, a community correction order with conviction is an appropriate sentencing disposition.

53Both parties have provided cases designed to assist me and I have had recourse to those decisions.

54I have had you assessed as to your suitability for such an order.

55An assessment outcome report dated 12 March 2025 assesses your risk of reoffending as low and finds that you suitable for a community correction order.

56Just checking with each of you whether there have been any matters that you need to bring to my attention.

57COUNSEL:  No, Your Honour.

Sentencing Principles

58Thank you.  The basic purposes for which a court may impose sentence are just punishment, general and specific deterrence, rehabilitation, denunciation and protection of the community.

59In sentencing you, I must have regard to a range of matters which include the seriousness of the offending, your culpability for it, your personal circumstances and those of any victim.  I must also balance the interests of the community in denouncing criminal conduct with the interest the community clearly has in seeking to ensure, where possible, that offenders are rehabilitated and are reintegrated into society.

60I have taken into account the sentencing purposes referred to in s5 of the Sentencing Act where relevant to your case and the current sentencing practices for the offences for which you have pleaded guilty.

61For the offences on the indictment, I propose to impose an aggregate sentence as I am satisfied that these offences are also founded on the same facts, or form, or are part of, a series of offences of same or a similar character.

62For the four offences on the Indictment, you are convicted and sentenced to a community correction order of two years and four months' duration.

63During that period of time you are to:

(a)   perform 200 hours of community work;

(b)   submit as directed for alcohol treatment;

(c)   submit as directed for programs designed to reduce your risk of reoffending.

(d)   I do not propose to offset any of the treatment conditions against the community work hours I have imposed, as I consider those to be part of what is just punishment.

64In addition to the conditions that I have imposed, there are standard conditions. The first and foremost of those is that you must not commit any other offences punishable by imprisonment during the two years and four months' period.  You must also report within two working days to the nearest Community Corrections office. You are also required to advise your Corrections office of any change of address of where you are living or working and that you must do so within two clear working days.  It is a term of all community correction orders that you must submit to visits as directed and you must obey all of the instructions and directions of a corrections officer. You are not able to leave the State of Victoria without the prior permission of your supervising corrections office.

65In my view, this order presents you with a chance to continue to change your life in a positive fashion should you choose to take up that opportunity and the supports that should be made available.  This order can be breached if you do not comply with it in terms of the conditions or reoffend, as I have said, whilst it is in place.  If you do, you will have to appear before me for breaching the order and I may have to resentence you on the charges and a separate charge for contravening the order.

66Section 6AAA of the Sentencing Act requires me to state the sentence I would have imposed had you not pleaded guilty to the charges.  If not for your pleas of guilty, you would have been sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.

67Now I can only place you on that order with your agreement, so I will give you a moment to speak with Ms Kothrakis shortly to see whether that agreement is forthcoming.  I will have that provided to you, Ms Kothrakis, and you have permission to approach.

68MS KOTHRAKIS:  Thank you, Your Honour.  Your Honour, he has indicated his consent by signing the document.

69HER HONOUR:  All right.  Thank you very much.  All right.  Well thank you to counsel for their assistance.  Mr Minopoulous, in the nicest possible way, I do not want to see you again.  There were no ancillary orders, were there?

70MR WILSON:  No, there weren't.  Thank you.

71HER HONOUR:  All right.  Thank you counsel for their assistance.

72MS KOTHRAKIS:  As Your Honour pleases.

73HER HONOUR:  I will stand down until 11.  Thank you.

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