THE FORMER chief executive of Carrie's Place was being "deliberately deceptive" when she "unilaterally" authorised her own pay increases and was motivated by a sense of entitlement and an unfairness that her subordinate staff were getting closer to her pay grade, a judge has found.
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Janet Marjorie McDonald, the former boss of the domestic violence and homelessness organisation, on Friday had an appeal against her fraud conviction dismissed, Judge Penelope Wass rejecting her evidence on some of the key issues, labelling it made up and "demonstrably false".
The decision means McDonald's conviction for dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception will stand, for now, but her lawyers have flagged appealing against the severity of her sentence in June.
As well as the criminal conviction, McDonald was in July last year placed on a nine-month good behaviour bond and ordered to pay back $10,000 to Carrie's Place.
McDonald was found guilty in Singleton Local Court last year, a magistrate finding she defrauded Maitland not-for-profit Carrie's Place in 2018 when she approved changes to her pay without the approval of the organisation's governance committee.
McDonald and the committee had been in negotiations about a pay increase for months when she emailed the organisation's accountants approving a pay rise for herself in March 2018.
McDonald had given evidence at the hearing that she'd spoken on the phone to the organisation's chairperson the month before, who she said agreed to approve back pay as a goodwill gesture while problems with McDonald's contract were sorted out.
The chairperson at the time, Nada Vujat, told the court that conversation never happened.
McDonald later emailed the accountants in June 2018, when negotiations had "clearly broken down" and while she was off on worker's compensation, and authorised another pay rise.
Judge Wass said McDonald felt like she had "inherited a mess" when she took over Carrie's Place and that the organisation had grown under her management and she had brought in "a huge amount of extra money".
McDonald's mother was a founding member of Carrie's Place and she said she "lived and breathed" the organisation, McDonald had said.
"I find that she decided of her own volition that Carrie's Place could afford her pay rise and so unilaterally gave herself one," Judge Wass said. "I find that she did so in the circumstances where she had no faith in the governance committee and, to use her words, 'these f---ing people are trying to kill me'."
Judge Wass said staff under McDonald's management had been receiving incremental pay increases and she felt her subordinates "were getting closer and closer to her remuneration".
"Of course I would be due a pay rise because nobody gets paid less than their subordinate staff," McDonald told police.
"It was a pay rise that she knew that had not been authorised and therefore she did so dishonestly with a view to obtain a benefit," Judge Wass said. "The appeal against her conviction is dismissed and the finding of guilt is confirmed."