Six years for serial con man who ripped off footy mates to pay debts
Three years after one-time accountant Douglas Johnston was released from prison after serving time for a scam which made him almost $850,000 he began seeking new targets while watching the footy.
The 76-year-old and his second wife Maureen convinced friends they met through the Collingwood Football Club to invest with them but instead took their victims' money for their own investments and to pay off credit card debts.
Between January 2010 and November 2013 Johnston defrauded five people of $815,000.
While the Johnstons went about ripping off their friends, they were members of Crown Casino's loyalty club where Johnston gambled away more than $422,181.
County Court Judge Wendy Wilmoth on Tuesday sentenced Johnston to six years in jail with a non-parole period of three years for his role in the scam.
The judge noted the enormous harm to the victims of the Johnstons' "entrenched dishonesty", singling out a couple who gave them $720,000 for property investments in Melbourne and the US.
The judge blamed Johnston for "virtually ruining their lives".
"You had a callous disregard for the trust placed in you," she said.
Last December, Maureen Johnston was jailed for 5½ years after she admitted scamming victims out of more than $1 million.
Judge Wilmoth said Johnston deserved a harsher penalty due to his previous involvement in a similar scheme and his complete lack of remorse.
"Your moral capability is greater if only because you had already acted gravely in the past," the judge said.
In 2002 Johnston was jailed for his involvement in a $843,000 scam and 13 years before that he was slapped with a community-based order for working as an unregistered accountant.
In 2006 he was released from prison and by 2009 he began to "pursue new targets", the judge said.
Johnston will also have to compensate some of his victims.
AAP