Nino Napoli, 64, resigned after a 2015 investigation through Victoria’s anti-corruption agency, IBAC, for his complex plan to defraud the Department of Education for part of $1 million.
Since then, he has struggled to work, his defense attorney Jim Shaw told the Victoria County Courthouse.
“I had been looking to place a task as Uber’s driving force at any given time, but because he had notable criminal charges, he couldn’t locate a task to do that,” Shaw said. “That’s what it comes down to.”
Napoli and her cousin Carlo Squillacioti, 62, gave the impression through a video convention for a pre-conviction hearing before Judge George Georgiou, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
The rates relate to a complex formula of “banker schools” that operated from 2007 to 2014, when Mr. Napoli was a senior official in the Ministry of Education and Training.
The court had heard in the past that Mr. Napoli would move taxpayers’ cash to some public schools and that schools would then distribute the cash to companies owned by Mr Napoli’s friends and family.
Schools would send cash after receiving fraudulent invoices for paintings, adding printing, transportation, film production systems and educational content, in exchange for paintings made but “incorrectly” given to corporations of Mr. Napoli’s affiliates without bidding, and for no painting. Not at all.
Some of these corporations belonged to Mr. Squillacioti, who earned $58,000 from rort, in exchange for a non-public benefit of $95,000 from Mr Napoli.
Carlo Squillacioti’s business has benefited from taxpayer cash for his cousin Nino Napoli’s public schools. Picture: Paul Loughnan Source: News Corp Australia
Mr. Shaw argued in court that the “seriousness of the crime” of Mr. Napoli and Mr. Squillacioti was weaker because the paintings for which corporations were paid were in fact finished.
“Nino Napoli felt that the branch was getting the value of his money” when he improperly awarded contracts to his friends and family, Shaw said.
But Judge Georgiou, the lawyer at this point.
“There does not seem to be any evidence for the proposition that this was also done to gain advantages from the department,” he said.
“Do you accept, don’t you, that some of the billed paintings are not made?
“I suppose your consumer had a very comfortable source of income while this crime lasted.
“Why shouldn’t I know that this was done only out of greed?”
The defense’s suggestion stated that Mr Napoli had been trapped in a culture of “privilege” and “invincibility” in the Department of Education. Several high-level bureaucrats of the time faced tariffs or were already convicted.
“They had too much freedom, ” said Shaw. “They had too much power.”
The investigation led to Mr. Napoli’s resignation in 2015, after 40 years in the department, where he began as a payroll agent before “climbing the ladder” to take over a $5 billion budget as executive leader of the School Finance Unit.
“He knows he brought it to himself, but the branch of his life, actually, ” said Shaw.
Yours is shattered.
Mr Shaw asked for a statement on a network correction order to be issued for Mr Napoli to care for his elderly mother, who had left his nursing home after the COVID-19 instances gave the impression at the house.
Napoli had an idea “for a long time and about their offensive,” he said.
In this case of Mr. Squillacioti, Sugiera stated that the attention gained by the high-profile case had harmed his business.
“His reputation has been seriously tarnished, he has had serious monetary problems, the banks have been seized … the notoriety of this case has punished him,” he said.
His references attest that Mr. Squillacioti “embarrassed, embarrassed and repentant.”
Pre-sentence hearings on August 19.