Former judge Marcus Einfeld gets at least two years' jail ... all for lying about a $77 traffic fine

Marcus Einfeld arrives at court for sentencing. Photo: Jon Reid

Former Federal Court judge Marcus Einfeld has been sentenced to at least two years in jail for lying to evade a speeding fine three years ago.

In a packed hearing room at the NSW Supreme Court, Justice Bruce James imposed a maximum three-year sentence on the 70-year-old for offences that struck "at the heart of the administration of justice".

"Any lawyer, and especially a lawyer who has been a barrister and a judge, who commits such an offence is to be sentenced on the basis that he would have been fully aware of the gravity of his conduct," he said.

Einfeld had pleaded guilty to perjury and making a false statement with intent to pervert the course of justice, to avoid a $75 speeding ticket in 2006.

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His lawyer, Ian Barker, QC, said Einfeld's tireless work for the disadvantaged and other mitigating factors justified the imposition of a non-custodial term.

But Wayne Roser, SC, for the Crown argued Einfeld should be jailed full time, saying the counts were "in the worst case category" of such offences.

Justice James said the retired judge engaged in "deliberate, premeditated perjury" in order to avoid incurring demerit points on his driver's licence.

He concluded Einfeld had engaged in "planned criminal activity", detailing the numerous lies in his police statement when he asserted he was not driving his car when it was clocked going 10kmh over the speed limit in the Sydney suburb of Mosman.

Justice James referred to the offences as striking "at the heart of the administration of justice".

Justice James set a non-parole period of two years.

After the sentence was imposed, well wishers went over to the dock where Einfeld embraced and kissed many of them.

At the suggestion of corrective services officers, he handed over his valuables, including his mobile phone.

'Oh, the bag is packed'

In reply to a comment from one supporter, Einfeld said, "Oh, the bag is packed," and he was then escorted out of the dock.

Outside court, Detective Superintendent Colin Dyson said there had been "no winners here today, but justice has been served".

The head of the fraud squad and commander of Strike Force Canter said the investigation was lengthy and "very intricate".

The jail term imposed on Einfeld sent out a message that for "anybody who is thinking about engaging in this type of activity, it is not worth it".

"For the sake of a small monetary penalty, people's lives can be absolutely ruined," Detective Superintendent Dyson told journalists.

He said Einfeld was the only person who knew why he did what he did.

In January 2006, Einfeld's car was caught by a speed camera doing 60kmh in a 50kmh zone. Rather than accept the $77 fine at his court hearing in August 2006, Einfeld said a friend of his, American college professor Teresa Brennan, had been driving the car.

It later emerged that Ms Brennan had died three years before the speeding offence took place.

Einfeld continued to deny any wrongdoing until his hearing, when he pleaded guilty to both charges. Einfeld's psychiatrist, Dr Jonathon Phillips, told the sentencing hearing that his patient had been treated for depression in 1996 and 2006, and had been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

An Aboriginal elder, Madeline McGrady, praised Einfeld's work with indigenous communities when he was Human Rights Commissioner in the 1980s.

In a separate hearing, Angela Liati was found guilty last month of making a false police statement by saying that she had been using Einfeld's car at the time of the speeding offence. Liati is on bail awaiting sentence.

- with AAP

via smh.com.au

 

Perrin vanishes like a billabong in a drought | The Australian

FORMER Billabong clothing empire wunderkind and Gold Coast multi-millionaire Matthew Perrin has gone to ground after this week being declared bankrupt with debts of $28 million.

Mr Perrin's brother Fraser - a former Queensland rugby union player and board member of The Southport School - said he had been unable to contact the former Billabong chief executive. "If I could find him I'd ring him as well," he said. "I don't know where he is."

Matthew Perrin, who spent four years on the BRW Rich List with his wife, Nicole, recording a peak value of $151 million in 2002, filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday with debts of $28.2 million to 20 unsecured creditors.

It is becoming apparent that although he reportedly had problems with a real estate investment in China, he had other difficulties relating to horse racing interests in Australia. Also, his personal fortune may not have been as high in recent years as was imagined. Two family companies, Christie Queensland Pty Ltd and MDP Consolidated Pty Ltd, have gone into forms of administration in recent days and are likely to be wound up.

A long-time, big-scale punter and former owner of as many as 60 horses, Mr Perrin owes $1.62 million to seven bookmakers, mostly corporate bookmakers offering odds online.

He owes $800,000 to Centrebet managing director Con Kafataris and a combined $460,000 to Victorian bookies Alan Eskander and Frank Hudson. Mr Perrin has an association with the gambling industry stretching back to the early 1990s when, as a university student, he spent more than three years working for bookmaker Laurie Bricknell, whose daughter Nicole is Mr Perrin's wife.

He owes a further $13.5 million to the Commonwealth Bank, secured against a Mermaid Beach unit that he bought in 2007 for $4.3 million and which by now may be worth only $3.5 million. Mr Perrin shot to fame in financial circles in 2000 when he became chief executive of Billabong, which listed that year as a market darling, with the group's shares closing at a 37 per cent premium to its $2.30 offer price.

Two years earlier Mr Perrin, then a little-known 26-year-old Gold Coast solicitor, teamed up with former Qantas chief executive Gary Pemberton to buy a 49per cent stake in surfwear giant Billabong from its co-founder Rena Merchant.

Ms Merchant, who founded Billabong in 1974 with her former husband Gordon, was paid $26.4million for her stake by Mr Perrin, his brother Scott and Mr Pemberton.

The deal with Ms Merchant paid off for Matthew, who in 2002 sold 60 per cent of his holding, reaping $66million. But that move caused a furore, with the Billabong chief executive failing to tell the board he planned to sell, and he resigned.

Ms Merchant, speaking yesterday from Queensland's Sunshine Coast, where she owns and operates an environmentally aware "organic golf course" at Boreen Point, said she did not regret the sale. "We did what we did at the time and we wish (Mr Perrin) all the luck in the world: it sounds like he needs some," she said.

"I only met the man twice which was when (the sale) was negotiated."

Matthew Perrin moved on too, selling a controlling stake in his software group RuleBurst to Larry Ellison's Oracle Group last year in a deal that was described as being worth $100 million.

That claim, which did not come from him, served to reinforce the notion of great wealth but in fact he ended up being paid only $242,500 for a parcel of options in RuleBurst sold on December 30, according to a statement of affairs filed during the week.

via theaustralian.com.au