more laughs from the legal fraternity
WL Ebsworth Lawyers’ David Stubby told the court: “It (the fraud) all comes about, in our case, due to fraudulent activity via Deutsche Bank and Atanaskovic Hartnell Lawyers.”
The court heard there was still about $1.3 million of the allegedly ill-gotten money sitting in accounts belonging to Clarke.
These include a Westpac bank account in Leura containing $650,000 and a Sportsbet account with $650,000 sitting in it.
Mr Stubby said this money should paid into the court so it could not be spent.
But Clarke’s barrister George Thomas is trying to fight a freeze placed on the accounts by Supreme Court late last year claiming his
client needs access to funds to pay for legal bills and “[highlight]moderate” personal expenses now he is out on bail.[/highlight]
“
Even though my client is alleged to be a thief, he may have a better title to a claim on that money than the bank, even though he is a thief,” Mr Thomas told the court.Clarke is charged with eight counts of fraudulently diverting funds while he was a solicitor with AHL between June 2016 and August 2017.
Police will allege the junior lawyer fooled one of the world’s most prestigious banks into transferring millions of dollars into his suburban bank account by pretending he was borrowing the money for Mr Gordon, who owns regional television network WIN Corporation and has interests in the Nine Network.
Two of the transfers — worth nearly $4.5 million and just over $2.5 million — involved funds held by Deutsche Bank on behalf of Birketu.
Police will allege Clarke pretended he had authority from Birketu and Mr Gordon to transfer the funds.
Three other transactions totalling $2.5 million were made on behalf of WIN Corporation and Birketu, according to court documents tendered in Central Local Court.
what legals will say in the defence of the defenceless...