source : the age
A former Transport for NSW official who was the alleged mastermind of a multimillion-dollar kickback scheme has avoided jail time after failing to appear before an anti-corruption inquiry and breaching his bail conditions.
Ibrahim Helmy, the man at the centre of a $343 million kickback scandal engulfing the state agency, failed to appear before an Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry in May.
This prompted the commission to issue a warrant for his arrest and later charge him for failing to appear before the inquiry and breaching his bail conditions by failing to report to Merrylands Police Station on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.
A family member had told the commission that Helmy “took the rubbish out on a Sunday night and did not return”.
After four months on the run from police, Helmy was discovered hiding in a cupboard in a red-brick Lakemba unit on September 26 and arrested. He spent 42 days in custody.
The court heard on Thursday that Helmy undertook significant planning to live somewhere in secret to avoid detection from police and ICAC officers, including using an email he created under a pseudonym to book a rental home on Gumtree, and having a private driver pick him up on a side street near his temporary residence to avoid detection.
He received an 18-month community corrections order and was issued a fine of $1760.
A community corrections order is a sentence for offences that do not warrant imprisonment, but are too serious to be dealt with by a fine or lower-level penalty. Orders can involve supervision by community corrections officers, up to 500 hours of community service, and curfews, and can be imposed for up to three years.
Local Court Chief Magistrate Michael Allen said Helmy had frustrated and delayed the processes of the inquiry at the expense of the ICAC and, more broadly, the community.
“You were well aware that you were placed on conditional release. Those conditions were clear – they were not complicated. For reasons that are not entirely clear, you chose to ignore those conditions not for a short period of time, but for many, many months,” Allen said.
“That was again, made perhaps more serious by the fact that you continued a ruse of still residing at the address in Merrylands when you, in fact, secreted yourself at a secret address which took law enforcement much time and resources to locate you, ultimately holed up in a cupboard. Such were your efforts to avoid detection, when you were subpoenaed to give crucial evidence, you did not attend.”
Charges alleging Helmy failed to reside at his Merrylands home and possessed more than one mobile phone were withdrawn and dismissed.
Allen said Helmy’s decision to plead guilty at the first opportunity, coupled with his mental health issues and lack of previous criminal history, were mitigating factors which led to a community corrections order, rather than a jail sentence.
Dressed in a white button-down shirt and grey slacks, Helmy sat in court with his head bowed down. His younger brother, Mohamed, was seated behind him.
As Helmy stood up for his sentencing, Allen said: “I expect a lifelong lesson from you … You, by your actions and your failures delayed the administration of justice at significant cost to the community.”
The ICAC recently concluded a public inquiry into allegations that Helmy was the mastermind behind corrupt relationships with nine companies that were paid at least $343 million in Transport for NSW contracts in exchange for kickbacks. Helmy is accused of receiving $11.5 million in kickbacks – including cash, gold bullion and cryptocurrency – from the contractors in return for their being awarded work on the state’s roads.
Less than two weeks after being arrested in September, Helmy appeared for the first time in the witness box on October 7 last year, fronting the ICAC inquiry a further 18 times.
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