Almost one year ago, Sydney accountant Filomina Kyriacou had her registration terminated by the Tax Practitioners Board over unpaid tax and penalties of $2.4 million.
This week, the accountant and her son, George Kyriacou, were accused in the case taken in the NSW Supreme Court of withdrawing $1,097,068 without permission from the accounts of a company previously run by her ex business partner Angelo Russo.
READ MORE: Tax accountant Filomina Kyriacou facing ban over $2.4 million unpaid tax bill
In court this week, Justice Guy Parker granted a temporary freezing order on Ms Kyriacou’s accounts while the case plays out.
According to his affidavit filed with the court, Mr Russo claims there were 101 individual payments taken out of Wentworth Williams Auditing.
He also claimed that Ms Kyriacou and her son had removed themselves as directors of the company in an attempt to stifle attempts to have the financial records revealed.
Mr Russo wrote in his affidavit that he confronted the pair over the money, The Daily Telegraph reports.
“Filomena would always refer me to George and George would always say he would get the documents together, however, George never provided me with anything,” Mr Russo wrote.
The court documents reveal Anthony Sumbati, an Australian Idol semi-finalist in 2003 who went on to work for Ms Kyriacou from 2015 to 2019, also gave an affidavit.
Mr Sumbati wrote that Ms Kyriacou told him: “Treat (Mr Russo) like a mushroom. Keep him in the dark. Don’t tell him anything. I control the money, he doesn’t need to know what I do with it.”
The singer also claimed in the affidavit that Ms Kyriacou “overstated” her cancer.
“When I first started working for Filomena in 2015, she told me words to the effect: ‘I have cancer. I only have a few months to live’,” Mr Sumbati wrote.
The case will return to court on June 22.
