A corrupt lawyer and accountant who described a $105 million tax fraud as a blessing because it was too complicated for even its perpetrators to untangle shows no contrition, a court has heard.
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After helping defraud Australian taxpayers who are now paying to prosecute and imprison him, Dev Menon will find out how long he'll be accommodated at their expense on Tuesday.
Menon is awaiting sentence over the Plutus Payroll tax fraud and money laundering conspiracies which funnelled money meant for the tax office through a web of second-tier companies.
"It would be the biggest tax fraud in Australia's history, definitely, there is no question," he was covertly recorded telling conspiracy architect Adam Cranston, among hundreds of recordings before the jury.
Menon told co-conspirators he was confident no one would ever figure it out as he instructed them to blame the scam on a dead man in a conversation later described by prosecutors as "revealing".
"A blessing in disguise, was that it was just a cluster f***, that no one will figure this out," Menon told them.
"All of us together trying to piece it together now, it's f***ing hard and we know. We know what fraud we have perpetrated and even for us it's hard to untangle."
Plutus was untangled in front of a jury that found Menon guilty alongside four others following a mammoth nine-month trial in the NSW Supreme Court.
The main issue for Justice Anthony Payne is when Menon could be found to have become knowingly involved in the scheme and how his conduct compares to related offenders already sentenced, some of whom's behaviour the judge described as "truly terrible".
His barrister Peter Bruckner has asked the judge to account for additional punishment occasioned on Menon, as he will never be able to be a lawyer again and has been subject to media attention.
Crown prosecutor Paul McGuire SC said Menon can hardly be surprised by the media interest and coverage was not unfair or untrue.
"It is not disproportionate to the amount of media coverage this case should have generated," Mr McGuire said.
Menon was an intelligent man engaged in sophisticated offending abusing his power and trust.
"Who has shown no contrition, and has shown limited if any real insight into the consequences of his conduct, beyond the consequences upon him and his family," Mr McGuire said.
Menon may fall back on being an accountant, requiring less stringent professional accreditation, he said.
The judge did not agree anyone can simply call themselves an accountant, and suggested the situation will change by the time Menon is released.
"I might be reading the tea leaves ... I think the accounting profession can look forward to close scrutiny in the future," the judge said, avoiding specific mention of the scandal engulfing accounting firm PwC.
Justice Payne has indicated he is likely to make at least one finding favourable to Menon.
"He was not primarily motivated by greed, unlike some others," the judge said on Thursday.
Australian Associated Press
