ALECOMM

THE Victorian government-owned financial manager State Trustees' reputation has been damaged and its staff devastated by a trusted colleague who stole $173,000 from deceased estates.

Haserota Time, 48, spent the last six of his 13 years with State Trustees, Victoria's largest administrator of deceased estates, systematically stealing, lying and abusing his position.

The County Court yesterday heard that Time used some of the proceeds to pay loans, credit card debts, a car for his wife and had also sent money to his mother and grandfather in Samoa.

Judge Frances Hogan told Time, who deposited cheques to clear debts for 36 estates of deceased people into his accounts, that he had caused ''immeasurable damage'' to State Trustees' reputation and staff morale and pride. Senior manager John Brennan said in a victim impact statement State Trustees had been forced to review more than 1700 estates Time had managed when he offended between July 2004 and April 2010.

Mr Brennan wrote how Time lied to colleagues, who were unknowingly involved in his systematic and elaborate crimes, and also circumvented controls that allowed him to act undetected for years.

Staff had also been forced to ''defend State Trustees to clients, friends and families'', he said.

Prosecutor Helen Fatouros said after Time, a senior estate representative who administered estates that had appointed State Trustees to act, twice tried unsuccessfully in April last year to deposit two cheques, a bank notified State Trustees, which began an investigation.

Ms Fatouros said State Trustees found after Time was arrested that the cheques had been issued through its systems and purported to clear debts relating to 36 deceased persons' estates he managed.

After initially lying to police about the extent of his offending, he later admitted its full scope and his ''stupidity''.

Defence lawyer Brendan Wilkinson said Time, a father of four, had spent the money ''living beyond his means'', which had not involved gambling or ''wild living''.

When pressed by Judge Hogan to seek more details from Time about why he was under financial stress - given he and his wife were both working - Mr Wilkinson said his client had bought a $25,000 car and had taken out loans.

In her sentencing submissions, Ms Fatouros said the obvious inference, given the lack of any clear explanation of where the money went, was simply that Time was ''greedy and had wanted to augment his pay packet'' by stealing.

Time, of Wyndham Vale, who pleaded guilty to a charge of theft and one of attempted theft, was remanded for sentencing next Wednesday.

Managing director Tony Fitzgerald yesterday told The Age all misappropriated client funds had been repaid with interest and that State Trustees had since ''implemented strict new security policies to minimise the risk of future incidents''.

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