A serial scammer has pleaded guilty to defrauding and attempting to defraud the National Disability Insurance Agency of almost half a million dollars.
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Mitchell John Landry pleaded guilty in the Bendigo Magistrates' Court on Wednesday to 11 charges of dishonestly causing a loss to the Commonwealth and eight charges of attempting to dishonestly cause a loss to the Commonwealth.
Charge sheets obtained by the Bendigo Advertiser show Landry, who lived in White Hills at the time of the offending, submitted requests for payment to the NDIA for services that were never provided.
The NDIA paid Landry almost $343,000 for work he did not do.
One of the charges of dishonestly causing a loss relates to an amount of $70,333 Landry received between June 15 and June 18 in 2018, after he submitted a false payment request.
Landry also submitted payment requests for amounts totalling almost $156,400, but these were not paid.
The largest single amount among these was more than $112,000.
Landry's offending took place between June and September 2018, and he was charged in February this year.
The 23-year-old pleaded guilty to similar charges earlier this year, including three counts of obtaining property by deception, two counts of attempting to obtain property by deception, fraud, and attempted fraud.
He was put on an 18-month community corrections order with 300 hours of community work for this offending, as well as other unrelated crimes that included stalking and possessing child abuse material.
Landry submitted 183 invoices to the Transport Accident Commission and was paid more than $25,000 for work he had already been paid for, or had not completed, after he was employed to provide gardening services to two clients of the agency.
He submitted another 40 invoices for work that he had already been paid for, but these were not approved.
Landry also fraudulently claimed postal insurance totalling more than $13,000 from Australia Post on an iPhone, iPad and drones he purchased then returned.
He was an Australia Post employee at the time and made it appear he had posted the items by scanning barcodes on empty packaging, then claimed they had not arrived at their intended addresses.
Landry will appear at the County Court in March next year for plea in the NDIA matter.
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