WA adviser sentenced to 5-years’ jail for stealing more than $1m from clients’ SMSFs
A Perth financial adviser has been handed a five-year prison sentence after being found guilty of stealing more than $1 million from his clients’ SMSFs.
Mark Raymond Sebo, 41, pleaded not guilty in the WA District Court to 36 charges of stealing money over a 10-day period in July and August 2019 from the SMSFs of eight couples and individuals.
The court heard the eight clients hired Mr Sebo to help with their SMSFs and he was only allowed to access their accounts with their authorisation.
State prosecutor Paul Usher told the court that evidence showed most of the money had been used to gamble on three online betting sites.
The court was told Mr Sebo deposited only one transaction into his personal account, with the rest going into online accounts he held with BetEasy, CrownBet and Ladbrokes.
One of the clients told the court how they noticed money had disappeared from their accounts without authorisation.
The court heard clients had contacted Mr Sebo when they noticed the transactions and he had replied with text messages urging them to make a complaint to the ASIC.
The largest amount he stole was $647,600 from one couple who had been clients since 2010.
In sentencing Mr Sebo, Judge Belinda Lonsdale said his offending was aggravated because he made some of the transactions look like errors, where fees had been deducted twice.
She added that Mr Sebo, who chose not to have legal representation, showed no real remorse.
“The evidence of your guilt was overwhelming, so you never accepted responsibility as you should have,” she said.
