The New South Wales Court of Appeal has ordered two solicitors to be removed from the roll after misappropriating over $2 million in client funds. Both were convicted and sentenced by the District Court in 2022.
The principal of Vo Lawyers, Mr Vo, pleaded guilty to three charges of dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage of deception contrary to the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW).
An employed solicitor at the firm, Ms Dinh, also pleaded guilty to one of the above counts of fraud, and to being an accessory after the fact in respect of another of the above counts.
The $2 million of client funds obtained were found to be largely, if not exclusively spent on gambling. The court described the offending by both respondents as serious and self-serving, that involved significant breaches of the trust of their clients.
The offending conduct encompassed a period of several months in which the personal funds of clients, amounting to some $2 million, were reduced to a vehicle to satisfy what Mr Vo acknowledged was a gambling disorder.
In imposing sentence upon Ms Dinh, Buscombe DCJ noted the considerably lower level of criminality of Ms Dinh as opposed to that of Mr Vo. He was the principal in the firm, and she was the employed solicitor. He was responsible for removing the funds from the trust account and for gambling the funds.
However, Ms Dinh’s role was still an important one, given her deceptive conduct towards the victims and the assistance she gave to Mr Vo, Buscombe DCJ noted.
The court noted the repeated and calculated lengths to which Ms Dinh went in concealing Mr Vo’s fraud. The severity of the court’s orders in relation to Ms Dinh highlights the duty to apply independent forensic analysis to instructions, even when given by a senior practitioner to a junior lawyer and in spite of any power imbalance which may exist.
While the clients have been fully reimbursed by the Fidelity Fund, neither Mr Vo nor Ms Dinh appear to have made reparations to that fund. The court also acknowledged the distress that each client must have suffered when large amounts of money they had entrusted to their solicitors were stolen from them.
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