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Subscriber only AN appeal has been filed over the court decision to set aside fraud convictions against former Ipswich mayor Andrew Antoniolli late last year. Mr Antoniolli, who was the city s mayor for less than a year between 2017 and 2018, was found guilty of 13 fraud offences in June 2019. He was later sentenced to six months in jail, wholly suspended, but his legal team lodged an appeal. It was alleged Antoniolli had fraudulently used more than $10,000 of Ipswich City Council s community donation funds to buy charity items at auction. Mr Antoniolli admitted buying the items while he was a councillor and mayor but pleaded not guilty on the grounds it was accepted practice within the council to use the fund to buy items at auctions.
News by Vanessa Marsh
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Subscriber only The cogs of justice had to keep spinning throughout the worst of the coronavirus restrictions and courts adapted in 2020, ramping up video and telephone appearances for lawyers and defendants and turning to judge alone trials when a jury was not possible. Thousands of cases came before the court this year from the tragic to the peculiar and the scandalous. These were some of the biggest court cases this year:
HEIDI STRBAK RELEASED Tyrell Cobb. Justice David Boddice ordered that Heidi Strbak s be sentenced to five years imprisonment with the sentence to be suspended after the 1148 days - just over three years - she had already spent in custody.
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FORMER Ipswich mayor Andrew Antoniolli said âjustice has ultimately been servedâ after his convictions for fraud were set aside last week.
Ipswich District Court Judge Dennis Lynch QC handed down his decision on Friday after upholding the appeal by Mr Antoniolli; acquitting him of all 13 fraud offences.
He had been found guilty by Magistrate Anthony Gett in June last year. Former Ipswich mayor Andrew Antoniolli was aquitted of all 13 fraud offences on Friday.
In a statement on his Facebook page, Mr Antoniolli said the acquittal marked the end of a âtumultuousâ two-and-a-half years for his family.