A man's brazen and unsophisticated attempt at insurance fraud by staging a robbery was evidence of his financial desperation, his lawyer has argued. Michel Elias Germani was about to have his jewellery store foreclosed due to the impacts of construction and Covid-19, his barrister said during a sentence hearing in the Downing Centre District Court on Wednesday.
Germani and co-accused Mounir Helou pleaded guilty to insurance fraud but were found not guilty of aggravated robbery by a jury in April. He claimed his luxury store, Germani Jewellers at Sydney's Hilton Hotel, was robbed by two men who bound him and a sales assistant with cable ties inside the shop in January 2023. However, the robbery was no more than a ruse for the 67-year-old to recoup funds before his store was shut down due to an outstanding $184,000 rental debt.
Germani was 'inept at navigating the criminal milieu' and driven to commit fraud by desperation, his barrister David Carroll said. 'This is not a fraud where there was a protracted period of deception ... it was brazen but it was certainly not sophisticated,' Mr Carroll said. 'The only way he could save his business was through this insurance fraud.'
Mr Carroll argued the three years his client spent in custody since his arrest would be largely sufficient punishment for his crime. At one point, Germani became physically agitated while appearing in court via audio-visual link from jail but did not speak other than to confirm he could see and hear the proceedings.
No parties other than the insurance company were harmed by the crime because the sham heist involved no real jewellery, Mr Carroll said. 'Mr Germani's case is that what the robbers took was fake jewellery,' he said. 'The suggestion that there was real jewellery ever taken is resisted.'
The Crown Prosecutor argued the $2,821,348 insurance claim Germani submitted for 164 items of jewellery 'stolen' was well above what he needed to save the business. But Mr Carroll said the high benchmark was merely a starting point in possible negotiations with the insurer and his client sought no benefit from the scam other than saving his business. 'They were about to foreclose on the store, he was not simply short on the rent,' he said. 'His financial position was so catastrophic that his business was going to fail.'
Helou's barrister said his client was on an intensive corrections order at the time he committed the offence. However, any sentence imposed should not add to the amount of time Helou has already spent in prison, he said. The two men will be sentenced on Thursday. Before the failed fraud came to light, Germani's website claimed it had designed jewellery for Princess Diana, Saudi and Jordanian royalty and Elizabeth Taylor.
