An Adelaide-based builder who defrauded his clients of hundreds of thousands of dollars in a desperate attempt to keep his company afloat has been jailed for more than two years.
Joseph Biju Kavilpurayidathil, also known as Mr Biju, pleaded guilty to 18 counts of dishonest dealings with documents for making fraudulent invoices and insurance certificates for some of the homes built through his company, Fenbreeze Homes, which has since gone into liquidation.
South Australia's District Court heard Kavilpurayidathil had "altruistic" intentions when he formed the company to provide fixed-price homes to predominantly migrants.
However, Judge Paul Slattery said despite initial success, the business model inevitably resulted in the company running at a loss because there were no clauses to recover building costs for unforeseen expenses during construction.
The judge said that rather than accepting his mistakes, the builder turned to deliberately dishonest offending to try to fix the company's cashflow issues.
"You refused to face the reality of your situation and as a result you resorted to dishonest conduct," Judge Slattery said.
The court heard Kavilpurayidathil created fraudulent invoices for work that was never done, or changed bank details on invoices from contractors, and also forged insurance certificates for his clients' homes once the company had reached its maximum cap on insurance overheads.
"You were the face of that company. Your apparent appeal was to customers from the subcontinent who, for obvious cultural reasons, would more readily place their trust in you — this is the very trust which you abused by your actions," Judge Slattery said.
"Offences of such a dishonest nature are heinous enough, and the victims of your offending are the same members of your community who had, for example, come to Australia and relied upon your guidance and support in their transitions to a new culture and environment.
"You vowed to help these individuals with arguably one of the biggest and most important purchases of their life."
Crimes emerged out of 'naivety and stupidity'
Judge Slattery said the crimes were a result of Kavilpurayidathil's "naivety and stupidity".
The judge said while the crimes were not purely motivated by greed, some of the fraudulently obtained money was used to line his personal bank accounts, rather than the company's.
The court heard the total amount of money outstanding totalled $500,000.
His lawyer asked the court to suspend the inevitable prison sentence, or allow him to serve it on home detention so that he could continue to make repayments.
The court heard the 48-year-old had offered to make compensation payments of $25,000 a year, over 12 years, amounting to no more than $300,000.
Judge Slattery said it was not a significant enough offer of restitution to influence the sentencing outcome.
"You were aware of how vulnerable these people were because of their ethnic background, their immigration to Australia or because of their apparent likelihood that they would trust you," he said.
"Faced with many choices, you deliberately chose to act dishonestly — your offending is just too serious."
After receiving a 15 per cent discount for his guilty pleas, Kavilpurayidathil was given a prison sentence of two years, eight months and 13 days, with a non-parole period of one year, five months and 26 days.
