Disgraced Queensland Lawyer Sentenced to 5 years Imprisonment
Friday 21 July 2017 @ 10.59 a.m. | Crime | Judiciary, Legal Profession & Procedure | Legal Research
Former high profile criminal lawyer, Timothy Meehan, has been sentenced to five and a half years imprisonment for nine fraud offences committed at his former law firm. Mr. Meehan was sentenced after pleading guilty to a scheme to dodge bankruptcy and tax payments by taking client payments in cash amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Background to the Case
In September 2016, Mr Meehan, after being fired from his former law firm, approached the Crime and Corruption Commission and confessed to taking part in a four year long scheme with the help of two colleagues. Mr Meehan, who is most notable for his work defending Daniel Morcombe killer Brett Cowan, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated fraud and eight counts of fraudulent falsification of records. He confessed that he and the two colleagues had limited their income to avoid paying back creditors to bankruptcies he and one other had declared. He encouraged clients to pay in cash to further avoid detection. Currently, the two colleagues have not been charged by the police.
A large percentage of the money was proceeds of crime. Some of the money was deposited into the firm’s trust account, but the rest was usually split between the three men involved, according to Mr Meehan.
Court Ruling
Justice Roslyn Atkinson described Mr Meehan’s conduct as having plunged his profession into disrepute “because it suggests that this behaviour is acceptable in the legal profession…” She went on to say:
In her sentencing ruling, Justice Atkinson took into consideration a myriad of mitigating factors. Namely, that he had cooperated throughout the entire investigation, that he had entered a very early plea of guilty and that there was no risk of him ever practising as a lawyer ever again.
Queensland Law Society president, Christine Smyth, endorsed the prison sentence with QLS describing Mr Meehan’s behaviour as having “left an indelible stain on the legal profession and the vast majority of lawyers…” Ms Smyth said the law society took cases such as this seriously and accepted that the public deserved answers when a legal practitioner was convicted for criminal acts.
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