AusLeisure

A pair of business executives have appeared in Alice Springs Local Court accused of defrauding the Indigenous-run Voyages Ayers Rock Resort of almost $470,000 in an embezzlement scheme that went undetected for months.

Federal Prosecutors allege Graham Heaselman, while employed as the Health and Safety General Manager at the luxury tourism property in 2017, approved more than 100 fraudulent invoices from an external company, Tristar Alliance, for safety procedural documents that do not exist.

His co-accused and Tristar co-Director, James Parry, is alleged to have conspired with Heaselman when he submitted invoices for documents such as electrical safety and scaffold procedures totalling $469,920 over a four-month period in 2017.

The pair appeared in the Alice Springs Local Court on 5th October charged with one count each of obtaining benefit by deception.

They were not required to enter a plea and will return to Court next month.

A statement of alleged facts claimed Heaselman had set about gaining the trust of senior management to implement a drastic work health and safety overhaul less than a month after commencing work with the resort.

It is alleged more than a dozen payments were made to Tristar for the documents, at Heaselman's insistence, with the money then siphoned into the private bank accounts of Parry, Heaselman and his partner, Amelia Popkiss.

In April 2017, Heaselman emailed Voyages' then-Chief Executive Andrew Williams, saying there was an urgent need for new safety procedures and the company was lucky it had not "killed anyone with electrical exposure".

Court documents alleged in the first instance, Heaselman emailed Parry an electrical safety procedure document, which Parry then emailed back the following day, along with an invoice totalling $2,640 for 20 hours of work.

Heaselman was alleged to have responded "hi James, the Voyages team appreciates your prompt service.”

Prosecutors allege the document was largely copied from a manual belonging to BlueScope Steel, which was later recovered from a storage device found in a search of Heaselman's office and home.

It is alleged after the first document was received, Heaselman then set up Tristar as a supplier with Voyages and learnt how to process invoices himself.

As reported by the ABC, at one point, he asked a senior colleague to provide him with training to become "a young invoice Jedi master".

In June 2017, Heaselman requested his authority to approve purchase orders be increased from $5,000 to $10,000 and that his corporate credit card limit be increased to $10,000. The requests were approved on the same day.

Court documents alleged that from this time, Heaselman approved a new invoice every few days, usually for 20 to 30 hours of work by Parry on various documents and training procedures, which were never completed.

Heaselman would sometimes message his partner, Popkiss, allegedly to let her know more money was being sent through to their private bank accounts.

He wrote in an email to Popkiss in May 2017 "I hope you are well [smiley face emoji] I finished another procedure and processed the invoice - the money will be in our account next Wednesday.”

Around this time, it is alleged Heaselman gave a presentation to Voyages' board of directors in Sydney on the development of a three-year work health and safety management plan for the company.

Williams approved the plan but told Heaselman to make sure the policies were "not just churned out from off-the-shelf policies" and were "developed and implemented to be effectively adopted within the business", according to court documents.

It is alleged that following the presentation, instead of requesting individual invoices from Mr Parry, Mr Heaselman began emailing him a spreadsheet highlighting the names of various policies and documents that were required.

Under the new invoicing arrangements, the total invoice amounts increased dramatically - with one totalling $81,840 - while individual purchase orders remained below $10,000, in line with Heaselman's limit.

Trust of senior management
Prosecutors allege that once Heaselman had "developed trust with senior Voyages managers" and a "fuller understanding of Voyages' invoice management system", he was more confident he could avoid detection for procuring fraudulent payments.

Court documents allegedly showed that between May and August, deposits totalling more than $285,000 were transferred from Tristar into Heaselman's personal bank account, while Parry and Popkiss were each transferred about $50,000.

A total of 117 invoices were issued to Voyages by Tristar during the period, for a purported 3,560 hours of work. Of the invoices, 113 were paid to Tristar, totalling $436,500.

In mid-August, senior management at Voyages raised their suspicions about the payments and commenced an internal investigation into Heaselman, and also questioned Parry over the phone.

At one point, when asked by a senior manager about the large payments for documents that could not be found, Mr Parry allegedly responded that a man named Joe Mullarkie had completed the work.

According to prosecutors, no correspondence with such a man exists, according to prosecutors.

Following a search of the company database, prosecutors claimed they were unable to find any evidence of work produced by Tristar.

Images: Andrew Williams, Voyages' Chief Executive at the time of the alleged offences.

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