Albion Park real estate agent Ben Feltham was at the top of his career before one dodgy decision saw it all come crumbling down.
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Feltham was in the top one per cent of real estate agents in the state and graduated top of his TAFE course, but after doing business with Illawarra developer Ellie Douna, he found himself tied up in a $14.7m development scam.
"You've lost your career, a career you've built over 18 years," Magistrate Claire Girotto told Feltham.
"That's gone in 35 minutes," she said.
Feltham fronted Wollongong Local Court on Thursday for his role in a plan to fraudulently secure a $14.7 million bank loan to fund Douna's next big property development.
Feltham pleaded guilty to three counts of making false documents to obtain financial advantage.
The men would likely have gotten away with it, the court heard, if detectives weren't listening to Douna's phone calls.
"They knew there was a fraud afoot," Magistrate Girotto said.
In late 2020, Douna began orchestrating a plan to make his latest venture - 'Avoca Park' in Avondale - appear more successful than it actually was, in the hope of securing finance from Australian Unity Bank.
Documents tendered to Wollongong Local Court said Douna needed the hefty loan to fund the project, but sales of the 19 homes proposed for stage one were sluggish, with only 10 sold by the time construction was due to commence.
Douna enlisted the help of Albion Park real estate agent Ben Feltham to help him cook the project's books, planning to make it appear on paper that all the homes had been sold. He told Feltham at the time "even if only half sell, I'll bodgie the rest up".
In January 2021, Feltham created fake receipts for the nine unsold properties using the names of friends or associates, all of whom later told police they had no idea their identities were being used and they had no intention of purchasing property.
While Magistrate Girotto acknowledged Feltham was just "a little cog" in a larger machine, the decision was still a "big mistake", she said.
"He has facilitated the fraud of the others by providing those receipts."
Defence lawyer Matthew Ward said Feltham's motives were not to obtain money for himself, and he received nothing other than what he was already doing, which was selling the homes.
He said the crime was unsophisticated in nature.
Feltham was sentenced in court on Thursday to a two-year community corrections order with supervision.