A home loan broker who provided fake pay slips to banks to help Vietnamese migrants buy homes says he was helping people to secure loans and his crimes had not caused any damage.
Key points:
- Lam Duc Vu provided banks with fake pay slips to help Vietnamese migrants secure bank loans
- The judge suspended a four-year, nine-month jail sentence
- Vu was placed on an 18-month good behaviour bond
Lam Duc Vu — who was a Justice of the Peace for more than 30 years — has been spared jail for giving Westpac, Bendigo and Adelaide banks pay slips that were fake or had been altered with higher rates of pay to secure home loans worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The 73-year-old pleaded guilty in the District Court earlier this year to 11 counts of dishonestly dealing with documents between 2015 and 2017.
During sentencing, Judge Paul Muscat said while Vu did not create the fake documents, he handed them to the bank on behalf of his clients knowing they were fake.
“While the loans have been serviced to date by each of the borrowers that may not always be the case into the future especially with interest rates on the rise,” he said.
“However, all of the loans are secured over the properties which would have appreciated over the years such that the banks would be able to recover their debt.”
Judge Muscat said it was also a concern that Vu had lost his job as a mortgage…
