Nick Karagiannis, who once gained attention as a so-called ‘Good Samaritan’ for many brave and philanthropic acts, has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment to be served in the community after pleading guilty to fraudulent car dealings.
Karagiannis, who is the founder of CrashClaim Accident Management, appeared before the Sydney District Court on Monday, February 3. He was sentenced to one year and ten months of imprisonment, to be served via an Intensive Correction Order (ICO) in the community.
Karagiannis had been charged with dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception, following an investigation into fraudulent transactions while he worked as general manager with former employer Suttons Motor Group in Homebush.
The court heard Karagiannis “juggled” money and caused a financial disadvantage of $475,675 to the company between 2016 and 2019.
The “juggling” involved organising for customers to pay for cars through his personal bank account and reimbursing his employer from his own account. Karagiannis wasn’t able to catch up with those repayments and his debt grew.
When sentencing Karagiannis, Judge P. Hock took into consideration his philanthropy and public acts of goodwill since being fired by Suttons. He has also been awarded an Australian Bravery Decoration.
Karagiannis was given 250 hours of community service work.
