Three men who conned more than $434,000 out of vulnerable elderly Victorians as part of an elaborate roofing scam have been sentenced to prison.
Michael Dooley, 36, and Johnny Dooley, 34, were ordered by the County Court of Victoria to spend four years and nine months behind bars, while Joseph Ball, 30, was sentenced to four years after the trio scammed more than 40 people across Melbourne's eastern suburbs with false promises to repair their roofs.
From February to July 2020, the men, who were Irish and UK citizens, cold approached home owners in wealthy Melbourne suburbs such as Kew, Hawthorn and Camberwell, pretending to be contractors and offering to fix perceived faults in their roofs.
Once the owners agreed, the men would start removing roof tiles before repeatedly noticing other issues and increasing the cost of repairs to "spurious" amounts.
The court heard in many instances victims felt pressured to accept the additional costs because work had begun and their homes were already exposed to weather.
Victims paid more than $100,000 to trio
The elaborate scheme saw the three men use several aliases, register phones and vehicles under other people's identities, and establish multiple fake companies to avoid being caught.
In one incident, a husband and wife living in Sandringham were approached by Johnny and Michael Dooley, who told the couple they were working nearby, and noticed their roof needed to be retiled.
The couple agreed and wrote out a cheque, before the Dooleys returned the following day telling them their cheque had been dishonoured.
The men then helped the husband, who had a UK bank account, set up online banking, before they transferred 80,000 British pounds ($140,000) to their fake business account after the man briefly left the room.
When questioned on the amount, the Dooleys told him $100,000 was needed for a bond for a crane and would later be repaid.
In total, the couple paid the fake contractors $147,888. They were later able to receive a full refund from their bank.
In a separate incident, a Glen Iris man was scammed out of $102,000 after he was told asbestos had been discovered in his roof and would need to be dealt with.
Overall, 43 people were scammed over 37 separate incidents, not including four people who were the victim of identification theft.
In some instances, the trio also contacted people who posted jobs on website Oneflare looking for tradespeople.
When victims became suspicious and refused to keep paying, the men would stop returning, leaving many roofs in worse condition than before.
A 92-year-old Camberwell man who was conned out of $18,000 told the court the trio's crimes left his home in an uninhabitable state, with attempts to make repairs by other tradespeople complicated by Melbourne's COVID-19 restrictions at the time.
All three men had pleaded guilty to almost two dozen charges, including obtaining property by deception and obtaining financial advantage by deception.
Those targeted 'in no position to challenge' scammers: judge
On Tuesday, Judge Michael O'Connell told Victoria's County Court the trio "unhesitatingly" targeted vulnerable Victorians in order to enrich themselves.
"Invariably, they were elderly, they felt keenly the need to have a sound roof over their heads and they were in no position to challenge your false representations as to the need for repairs and the costs of carrying out those repairs," he said.
The court heard police seized large amounts of cash and several luxury items in the men's homes, including designer watches and shoes, which will be sold off to help compensate the victims.
Judge O'Connell noted many of the victims later needed to hire legitimate tradespeople to repair the damage the men caused to their homes, and had suffered "residual psychological fallout".
"The cost of your offending is much wider than the funds you obtained," he said.
"It is not difficult to infer a wider chilling effect that your dishonesty has had on those in the community who might wish to use a local tradesperson, but may hesitate to do so when they reflect on the experience of these victims."
In sentencing, Judge O'Connell said Ball, a dual citizen of the UK and Australia, was less culpable than the Dooleys because he "lacked the cognitive capacity to run a criminal enterprise of this scope".
The court heard Ball, who was found to have an IQ of 65, had the vocabulary and arithmetic abilities of a Year 7 student, and was less involved in the scheme than the Dooleys.
Originally from Killarney in Ireland, Michael Dooley arrived in Australia in 2019 on a student visa looking for better work opportunities.
The following year, Johnny Dooley arrived in the country from England, and was placed in contact with Michael Dooley via his father.
With time served, the Dooleys will be eligible for parole in less than a year and Ball in two months' time.
