Party for home detention fraudster canned - Stuff

MATT STEWART

Trade Me

Shaan Stevens' home in Kaiwharawhara.

A ''tarts and convicts'' 50th birthday bash organised by friends to cheer up a convicted fraudster serving home detention in a $4.8 million Kaiwharawhara mansion has outraged his victims.

Former Wellington Free Ambulance chairman Shaan Stevens was sentenced to 10 months home detention in November last year after being found guilty of filing fraudulent income tax and GST returns on behalf of five clients through his tax agency, Guinness Gallagher.

Invites to the birthday party were leaked to the media and one victim of Stevens' fraud, who is still waiting for reparation, was outraged by the party, the New Zealand Herald reported.

Stevens told The Dominion Post he had cancelled the party and would now either spend his birthday ''at home by himself'' or with his family.

Stevens said he was disappointed a friend had leaked the email invite.

The invite features what looks like a man urinating into the ocean and was intended to stay amongst a group of 15 friends who had organised the party to give him a birthday boost, Stevens said.

''I've got no money because I can't work -? they said it's your 50th and you can't sit around by yourself. They sent it round as a friend thing to cheer me up.''

The invite is designed to look like a front page from the disgraced and defunct News of the World tabloid and quotes a fictional partygoer: ''I sort of feel sorry for those left off the list, but you know while my beauty is a burden it is also my entree to these sort of events and I know Shaan likes to surround himself with classy broads like me.''

Stevens admitted the invite was inappropriate and told the Dominion Post he could ''see why people would be angry'' but said he had met and ''would continue to meet'' all his obligations to his victims.

Stevens, a former member of the Victoria University council, was sentenced to 10 months' home detention and 150 hours' community work and ordered to repay $121,851 to his victims.

The returns were fraudulent because they included claims for bogus expenses which had the effect of reducing the tax liability of Stevens' clients.

The clients paid an invoice for the false expenses. They received the bulk of the payment back and Stevens retained the difference.

The fictitious expenses claimed by Stevens were about $2.1 million with a loss to the IRD of just over $821,000. Stevens benefited by about $60,000 himself.

The court was told he planned to sell the Kaiwharawhara property, with a rateable value of $4.8 million, to repay the money he owed clients.

If the home, described in the invite as his ''hideaway'', did not sell he was ordered to repay the money to his clients by May 7, 2013.

Stevens said he could not sell the house because it was owned by his family's trust, of which he was neither a trustee or beneficiary.

Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/6461401/Party-for-home-detention-fraudster-canned

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