Mr Michael Kosmos Damianos, of Bentleigh East, Victoria, was yesterday sentenced to jail after pleading guilty in the Melbourne County Court to obtaining a financial advantage by deception and false accounting, following an Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) investigation.

In October 2005, Mr Damianos, the former director of a transport logistics company Priority Road Express Pty Ltd, used his position to dishonestly make false representations to the Westpac Banking Corporation (Westpac). As a result, Westpac advanced Priority Road Express $259,496.66.

At the time Mr Damianos made the representations to Westpac, he was disqualified from managing corporations.

Mr Damianos was sentenced to three and half years prison of which two years are to be served concurrently.

As a result of yesterday’s convictions, Mr Damianos was also found to be in breach of a three-year suspended sentence that was imposed by the County Court on 23 April 2004 after he was convicted on two counts of obtaining property by deception. The court reinstated this original sentence. Mr Damianos will consequently serve four and a half years in total. He will serve a non-parole period of two years.

‘Individuals who continue to manage corporations or remain involved in making decisions that affect a business, while disqualified, are in serious breach of the law’, said ASIC’s Executive Director of Enforcement, Ms Jan Redfern.

The Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions prosecuted the matter.

In 2004, Mr Damianos pleaded guilty to two counts of obtaining property by deception, amounting to approximately $1.7 million. He was sentenced on the first count to 12 months imprisonment and on the second count to 24 months imprisonment, to be served cumulatively, making a total effective sentence of three years. The sentence was wholly suspended for three years.

As a consequence of this, Mr Damianos was automatically disqualified from managing corporations until April 2009, pursuant to section 206B of the Corporations Act.