A Kumar* has narrowly escaped time behind bars after he pleaded guilty to stealing $127,000 from Best Friends Pet Care Company to fund his own businesses.
The 32-year-old has been convicted and sentenced to a three-year community corrections order and must log 300 hours of unpaid community work.
Earlier this month, the County Court heard that Mr Kumar had joined the pet care franchise as a payroll manager in 2014.
Since then he fleeced his employers at least 14 times over an 18-month period, each time fraudulently transferring money from the company’s account into his own, under the guise of “bonus” payments to set-up his own juice bar in Sydney.
He set-up the joint in partnership with a friend for which both of them needed to pool at least $75,000 each as initial investment, the court heard.
But when it failed to take off, Mr Kumar took over an Indian restaurant expecting that the cash flow from the new business would provide a fresh lease to the fledgling juice set-up. But things didn't turn out the way he envisaged and eventually the restaurant too ran into losses due to intense local competition.
The fraud was spotted by one of the proprietors of the business during an internal audit, following which he was arrested.
During sentencing, Judge Scott Johns said that while his actions were “significant”, he posed a “low-risk of re-offending,”.
“I am prepared to accept you were under considerable financial stress and strain and that these factors led to you acting in a grossly dishonest fashion that was otherwise out of character,” Judge Johns said.
"The most obvious serious feature of your offending is that it constitutes a breach of trust. Your offending does not fall within the most serious category of embezzlements, but nonetheless it is serious offending," added the Judge.
Born and brought up in India, Mr Kumar arrived in Australia as a student in 2007.
Although he has managed to escape a jail term, he has lost both his businesses and is now being supported by his family in India who are also helping him to pay-off the pet care company.
* Not his real name
