In Sydney, a manager is on trial for allegedly using stolen funds to pay for a number of extravagant gifts and bribes, including a $620,000 vacation.
Helen Mary Rosamond seemed to have no limits to her generosity as she provided her in-laws with a new automobile, attended a 70th birthday party at a vineyard for someone’s father, and paid the $30,000 gasoline bill.
But according to federal prosecutors, the Sydney executive concealed the fact that NAB had paid for her expensive gifts, which cost millions of dollars.
The 47-year-old chief executive of the human resources and events firm Human Group entered a not guilty plea on Monday to a number of allegations of bribery and fraud that claimed she orchestrated a multimillion-dollar scheme against the Big Four bank between 2013 and 2017.
The prosecution claims that invoices for a Toyota Kluger for Rosamond’s in-laws and a $30,000 gasoline bill for a relative’s trucking business were made up to seem like NAB expenses.
According to the crown prosecutor Katrina Mackenzie, Rosamond reportedly provided money or other products “as presents from herself, but in reality she had every intention for NAB to foot the tab.”
One witness is anticipated to testify that Rosamond assured them: “Don’t worry, I’m not paying for it” when they asked.
Rosemary Rogers, the head of staff to the bank’s then-CEO, is accused of being a crucial player in the scheme by assuring that the false bills were still being paid by bank employees.
She got advantages, the jury heard, including a $620,000 vacation to the US in 2014 with her extended family that included transfers by boat and private plane.
The vacation was funded by a sizeable sum that was designated for “NAB Project 27,” according to Ms. Mackenzie.
‘Why? We claim that it was done to hide the true beneficiaries of the funds.
Rogers, who is scheduled to testify for the prosecution later in the trial, is also accused of receiving a $130,000 boat and mooring in Melbourne as well as frequent excursions to a remote retreat in Wolgan Valley, New South Wales.
Rosamond is accused of taking her own family on a $132,000 vacation to the Rocky Mountains in the US, which was deducted from the bank’s prepaid account with Human Group and disguised as a NAB business trip.
One of the biggest and supposedly most fraudulent invoices was for $2.2 million.
It was ostensibly for “Project Eagle,” the cover name for the 2017 hiring of former NSW premier Mike Baird as a NAB executive, but it really used to pay a substantial portion of the mortgage on a house Rogers had bought in Melbourne’s west Williamstown.
Ms. Mackenzie anticipates the evidence to reveal that an additional $700,000 allegedly got to Rosamond.
Later this week, Dr. Anton Hughes, Rosamond’s attorney, is scheduled to make his opening statement.
The trial goes on.