Melbourne real estate accounts manager admits to using trust account money for gambling

Property ObserverDecember 7, 2020

Nadim Mindraoui, a former real estate agency accounts manager from Caroline Springs in Melbourne’s outer west, has been sentenced to a 15-month community correction order after taking about $160,000 of trust account money and using it for gambling.

Mindraoui, 20 was working with his father - a director of City Residential Real Estate - when he took the money from the agent’s trust account between December 2010 and April 2012 for the purposes of gambling, said Consumer Affairs Victoria.

He escaped a jail term by pleaded guilty in Sunshine Magistrates’ Court to contravening the Estate Agent’s Act by fraudulently converting the trust money to his own use.

He was 18 when the offending began and the trust money had since been repaid.

Under the community correction order, Mindraoui was required to attend the Sunshine Community Corrections Centre by 1 August, and:

  • perform 60 hours of unpaid community work
  • undergo a mental health assessment and treatment as directed
  • undergo an offending behaviour program (or programs) as directed.

The sentencing magistrate noted that he would have received a jail term, but for his guilty plea.

A community correction order includes basic conditions such as not re-offending and not leaving Victoria without permission.

Editor's Picks