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A Cairns woman has received a jail sentence for misuse of trust account funds and has been ordered to repay $10,000 – the second conviction obtained following an investigation into a Queensland accommodation provider.
Janet Karen Guthrie, executive director of Three Sista’s, a corporate letting agent and previous caretaker of the Plaza Palms Resort in Manunda, was taken to court by Queensland’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) for withdrawing $10,000 in cash from the company’s trust account, inappropriately using it for personal and business costs, and failing to keep required records of the transactions.
Ms Guthrie pleaded guilty to one charge of fraud under the Criminal Code in the Cairns Magistrates Court.
She was sentenced to six months imprisonment wholly suspended for a period of two years.
Three Sista’s was jointly charged with Ms Guthrie in relation to the same offence and was also charged with a second count of fraud.
The court heard that between October 2016 and June 2017, thirty-six payments were drawn from the company’s trust account and paid to another real estate agency that was managing the private tenancy of Ms Guthrie.
These convictions were a continuation of an investigation into Three Sista’s business practices that ultimately led to the October 2020 conviction of Ms Guthrie’s ex-husband, Stuart James Wright, after he pleaded guilty to 437 offences connected with the management of Plaza Palms Resort.
Mr Wright was accused of making 406 unauthorised transfers from the company’s trust account between 1 January 2017 and 23 March 2018, totalling $292,393.
Sentenced to two years in prison and banned from working in the real estate industry for life, Mr Wright was paroled on 25 March 2021 after serving six months on his terms of imprisonment.
Fair Trading commissioner Victoria Thomson said the latest conviction showed that the OFT was “committed to weeding out those who damage the integrity of the property industry in Queensland”.
“Trust money does not belong to agents and the OFT will investigate and seek penalties for those who deal with that money inappropriately,” Ms Thomson said.
“Property owners pay large sums of money to these agents to manage their assets, and tenants trust that they are dealing with their money properly when they pay rent and bonds.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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