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<\/p>\nA former accountant who defrauded nearly $850,000 from a theatre in regional Queensland will serve at least two years in jail.<\/p>\n
Anthony Patrick Nunn, 49, pleaded guilty in Toowoomba District Court today to two counts of fraud as an employee, with one of those fraud charges involving more than $100,000.<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Abby Kong told the court Nunn had fraudulently moved $843,200.29 across 92 transactions to his personal account during the seven years and nine months he was employed as an accountant at Toowoomba’s Empire Theatre, on the Darling Downs.<\/p>\n
The transactions were disguised as payments to superannuation funds or for the Office of State Revenue, with an $1,800 transfer at the lowest end, to a one-off payment of $33,000, the court was told.<\/p>\n
It heard there was no direct evidence of what Nunn had spent the money on over the years.<\/p>\n
Ms Kong said Nunn would edit receipts, invoices and tax documents using Microsoft programs to hide his fraud, even including the signatures of other employees on the documents as a form of deceit.<\/p>\n
The court was told Nunn’s offending did not come to light until after the Queensland Audit Office conducted a general audit of the Empire Foundation accounts, where it noticed some irregularities, separate to his offending, in August 2023.<\/p>\n
Ms Kong said this detection led to further investigation, which discovered Nunn’s fraud.<\/p>\n
Taking money was ‘like an addiction’<\/p>\n
The court heard Nunn told the theatre’s general manager he only edited bank documents after failing to contact a sponsor about ongoing support.<\/p>\n
Nunn was fired from his job in August 2024 once management learnt of his ongoing fraud, and the matter was reported to police.<\/p>\n
Ms Kong said Nunn initially told police he had amended receipts to the value of about $8,500.<\/p>\n
The Crown prosecutor said the accountant’s offending was a “calculated cause of dishonesty, it was persistent \u2026 [and] wasn’t a product of addiction, say gambling or substances”.<\/p>\n
“It seems the defendant’s enrichment of himself went towards maintaining a lifestyle,” Ms Kong said.<\/p>\n
Nunn’s barrister, David Jones KC, said his client started offending due to “financial difficulty in the backdrop of feeling depressed”.<\/p>\n
Mr Jones said the offending was “like an addiction”.<\/p>\n
“Every single time he told himself that would be the last time and there would be no times,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Anthony Patrick Nunn, who appeared in a Toowoomba court today, will be eligible for parole in two years. (ABC News: Tobi Loftus)<\/p>\n
‘Longstanding, sophisticated’ crime<\/p>\n
Judge Benedict Power KC ordered Nunn to serve a head sentence of eight years in prison, eligible for parole in two years.<\/p>\n
Judge Power said Nunn had been in a “position of trust” while disguising the fraud as “legitimate payments”.<\/p>\n
“You used that position of trust to commit a longstanding and sophisticated fraud,” he said.<\/p>\n
Judge Power noted Nunn had continued to defraud his employer for another year despite knowing the Queensland Audit Office had flagged concerns.<\/p>\n
He found Nunn had shown remorse, having pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.<\/p>\n
“You were in a situation where you began to rely upon the money,” Judge Power said.<\/p>\n
“You fear your conduct will involve great hardship to your family for the potential for civil suits. You worked while you were on bail to support your family.<\/p>\n
“I consider those factors are such that I would not be considering such a low parole period were it not for the accumulation of factors.”<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
The Empire Theatre says it cooperated with authorities throughout the investigation. (Supplied: The Empire Theatres)<\/p>\n
Empire Theatre responds to court’s ruling<\/p>\n
In a statement, the theatre said once the fraud was uncovered, it “acted swiftly and fully cooperated with the relevant authorities throughout”.<\/p>\n
“The Empire remains focused on continuing to be a proud part of the Toowoomba community, serving and supporting the local region with integrity, accountability and creativity.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former accountant who defrauded nearly $850,000 from a theatre in regional Queensland will serve at least two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":574625,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[90221,281976,64,63,1108,281975,281977,85,10106],"class_list":["post-574624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-accountant","tag-anthony-patrick-nunn","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-court","tag-empire-theatre","tag-judge-benedict-power-kc","tag-sports","tag-toowoomba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574624","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=574624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574624\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}