A Canberra soccer swindler has enjoyed a partial appeal win, with a judge quashing more than $7500 worth of theft convictions.
But most of Aaron David Alexander's convictions were confirmed on Friday, leaving the former Gungahlin United Football Club president guilty of stealing more than $23,500 of its money.
Alexander, 51, was arrested and charged with more than 100 fraud offences in February 2020, when police alleged he had stolen in excess of $112,000 from the club while running it.
During the protracted legal saga that ensued, magistrate Glenn Theakston dismissed all the fraud matters but found Alexander guilty in relation to 65 back-up charges of theft.
In his August 2022 decision, Mr Theakston found Alexander had stolen $31,097.86 from the club's coffers between December 2017 and July 2018.
Alexander had exclusive access to the club's bank accounts during that period, following the resignation of its treasurer.
Mr Theakston found the United States citizen, who lives in Forde, had taken advantage of this situation to lease a private car, make personal purchases and top up his own bank balance.
Alexander appealed from his convictions on five grounds, with Legal Aid lawyer Edward Chen arguing his case in the ACT Supreme Court last week.
Chief prosecutor Anthony Williamson SC successfully rebutted four of the five grounds in his response, but Acting Justice Peter Berman decided on Friday to partially uphold the other.
This ground alleged a large number of the guilty verdicts returned by Mr Theakston had been unreasonable and could not be supported by the evidence.
Ultimately, Acting Justice Berman found that was the case in terms of 17 of the charges.
These included five transactions at Bunnings, where Alexander spent "a lot of money" during a period of about three months.
While Acting Justice Berman found there was no way all of these purchases had been for legitimate club purposes, it remained possible one of them was.
He therefore felt obliged to acquit Alexander of all the charges relating to the hardware store.
The judge also quashed Alexander's convictions in relation to nine charges, which involved electronic transfers where the offender had recorded a purportedly legitimate reason.
The other three convictions quashed on Friday related to Alexander having used the club's debit card at Just Jeans, a cinema and a pet shop.
Acting Justice Berman said there was evidence the club would occasionally give out "movie theatre cards" as raffle prizes.
He also found there was a chance the club might have had prizes from the other businesses as part of raffles and trivia nights, meaning Alexander must be found not guilty over those transactions.
The end result is that Alexander's case will return to the ACT Magistrates Court for him to be sentenced in relation to the 48 guilty verdicts Acting Justice Berman confirmed on Friday.
In total, these relate to the theft of $23,546.79 from the club's coffers.
The quashed convictions involved a total of $7551.07.
Until he is sentenced, Alexander will remain on bail.
