Medicare Mud claimed baby bonuses for dead people

[Rev.Cambeul]

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,26086954-29277,00.html

A MEDICARE worker has been sentenced to four years' jail for using dead people's identities to claim more than $300,000 in baby bonus payments and sending some of the money to relatives overseas.

Bernard Monyenye, 34, pleaded guilty to 24 counts of obtaining financial advantage by deception, attempting to obtain financial advantage by deception and sending proceeds of crime to accounts in Kenya, Uganda and the United Arab Emirates.

The Perth court heard Monyenye used Medicare records to claim baby bonus payments and the maternity immunisation allowance, totalling $318,286.70, between June and November last year.

District Court Judge Kevin Sleight described the act as a "grave breach of trust'' and sentenced him to a non-parole period of two and a half years.

Judge Sleight said the scheme was "well planned and involved a cunning act ... motivated for offences related to greed''.

He said Monyenye was an intelligent man who had studied at Perth's Murdoch University after arriving in Australia in 1998 on a student visa.

He said Monyenye felt resentment to his Medicare employers because his career had not progressed.

The holder of dual Australian and Kenyan citizenship, he was arrested before he was able to travel to Kenya with his family in December last year.

Commonwealth prosecutor Patricia Aloi said Monyenye used his position at Medicare to access Centrelink records of dead people to obtain tax file numbers and create false claims for the $5000 baby bonus payments for 64 fictitious children.

He siphoned the money into 14 bank accounts and sent $19,324 of stolen funds to the accounts of relatives in Africa and the Middle East.

The court was told about two-thirds of the stolen money had been recovered.

Monyenye appeared calm as his sentence was handed down.

Defence lawyer Angus Hockton said Monyenye had asked his wife and three-year-old daughter not to attend the sentencing, in order to escape the media glare.

Mr Hockton described his client as a loner who suffered bouts of depression that stemmed from his violent upbringing in Kenya.

Monyenye was charged by Australian Federal Police (AFP) in Perth yesterday after a joint AFP and Centrelink investigation.