A former SMSF adviser has been unsuccessful in his attempt to have a dishonesty conviction and prison term overturned on the basis there had been a miscarriage of justice and the jail time was excessive.
In September 2024, Melbourne-based Bradley Grimm was convicted on three counts of engaging in dishonest conduct between February and November 2015 and was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment.
On 3 October last year, he sought leave to appeal in the Supreme Court of Victoria against the conviction and sentence on the basis of a miscarriage of justice and the jail term being manifestly excessive.
This view was rejected by the Victorian Court of Appeal on 7 February 2025 by Justices Priest, Forrest and Kennedy, who refused the application for leave to appeal on 19 February.
In making their decision, the three justices stated: “Having regard to the serious objective criminality and degree of moral culpability involved [in his offending], there is simply no basis for the suggestion that the sentence was ‘wholly outside the range’. Rather, we consider it to be lenient.”
Their comments follow Grimm having earlier pleaded guilty to dishonestly transferring funds between two of his clients’ SMSFs to three separate companies of which he was the sole director and to dishonestly transferring shares and convertible notes owned by a client’s SMSF into a company without adequately advising the client he was the sole director and had a personal interest in that company.
Additionally, he also failed to advise his client the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) had sought the winding up of entities related to him, including Ostrava Equities Pty Ltd, and that he was banned from providing financial services by order of the Federal Court.
Grimm first came to ASIC’s attention in May 2015 when he was ordered to surrender his passport. Following further ASIC action, he was banned by the Federal Court in September 2016 from providing financial services for 20 years and managing corporations for 15 years in regards to the dishonest conduct.
He was subsequently charged in relation to the conduct in November 2018 and found guilty on three charges in January 2023, after pleading guilty to a range of behaviour, and was sentenced in April of the same year.
Following the failure of his appeal, Grimm will serve the balance of his sentence, which was nine months at September 2024, and he is required to be of good behaviour for a period of 18 months upon release pursuant to a recognisance in the amount of $5000.
