![\"Former](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/prod.static9.net.au\/fs\/ddb02b83-ac53-4455-89d6-884c44ec8d1c.jpeg\")
Former financial advisor Anthony Paul Torre leaves court in Perth. (Nine)<\/p>\nA victim fleeced by a financial adviser says he almost took his own life when he realised he’d been ripped off.<\/p>\n
Anthony Paul Torre, 57, has been sentenced to six years’ imprisonment after embezzling $1,030,000 from eight clients between 2010 and 2015.<\/p>\n
The money funded Torre’s lifestyle and propped up his ailing business, with the District Court in Perth today hearing that he was fuelled by greed, arrogance and incompetence.<\/p>\n
Former financial advisor Anthony Paul Torre leaves court in Perth. (Nine)<\/p>\n
Stephen and Wendy Walker say Torre was a slick operator who groomed them before stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars they haven’t recovered.<\/p>\n
“I very nearly took my own life,” an emotional Mr Walker said outside court.<\/p>\n
“He was like a friend to me. Maybe I’m naive, but he was always there to talk about where we’re going in our life … and then at the end of the day, he’s stealing from us.”<\/p>\n
Torre’s “betrayal” forced Mr Walker, 68, to delay his retirement.<\/p>\n
“We will be on a part-pension, which I’m not proud of,” he said, fighting back tears.<\/p>\n
“It’s damaged so many people. It should have been 10 years (jail).”<\/p>\n
In sentencing, Judge John Prior said Torre’s conduct was deceptive and persistent, but “not particularly sophisticated” and a large sum of the money was taken to repay other clients.<\/p>\n
“Your conduct is very serious,” he said.<\/p>\n
“You stole money or defrauded people who trusted you … some were your friends.<\/p>\n
“The victims in each case were vulnerable because you had easy access to their money.”<\/p>\n
Torre robbed his victims of opportunities and financial security, the court was told, with some suffering physical and mental health impacts.<\/p>\n
Prior was also critical of Torre’s guilty plea on the day his trial was set to begin, three-and-a-half years after he was charged following an investigation by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.<\/p>\n
“There has been significant procrastination by you that had a significant impact on your victims,” he said.<\/p>\n
Sue and Gary Sheehan invested their superannuation with Torre after retiring from their careers as an aged care worker and a cabinet maker.<\/p>\n
Torre lured them into an investment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars using a fake loan document.<\/p>\n
“He had our lump sum, so we had no money for three years,” Ms Sheehan, 77, said outside court.<\/p>\n
“We were living on $63 a fortnight from Centrelink.<\/p>\n
“It was just absolutely demoralising.<\/p>\n
“We were forced to withdraw from our mortgage to live.”<\/p>\n
The couple said while some of the money Torre stole from them was recovered, they remained out of pocket by a significant sum, although the court heard they had received about $900,000 in repayments and compensation.<\/p>\n
Torre was originally accused of stealing about $1.88 million from his clients, but this was reduced to just over $1 million after a plea deal.<\/p>\n
All but $289,000 of that was repaid by Torre or recovered from insurers, the court was told.<\/p>\n
He admitted three counts of stealing and two counts of fraud.<\/p>\n
Mr Walker, a tradesman, said his and his wife’s case was among the accusations dropped by prosecutors in the plea deal.<\/p>\n
“A lot of people have not got any money back at all,” Mr Walker said.<\/p>\n
Torre will be eligible for parole after serving four years, backdated to January 29, 2025, when he was taken into custody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A victim fleeced by a financial adviser says he almost took his own life when he realised he’d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-430333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}