A Canberra lawyer fraudulently obtained thousands of dollars in legal fees while working on a high-profile murder conspiracy case, according to court documents.
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The lawyer, Stephen Raymond Stubbs, 63, is alleged to have demanded and received $4000 from Legal Aid ACT, a service designed to aid socially or economically disadvantaged Canberrans, while also being paid $30,000 by his client's mother.
He is now facing three fraud charges in the ACT Supreme Court.
Stubbs had recently purchased the Kingston and Gungahlin offices of Diana Burns Solicitors when he was retained by Alexander Duffy, a man who was arrested in November 2008.
Duffy was facing serious charges. He was accused of involvement in a plot to kill a teenager and bury his body at the Cotter.
He and two others had planned to use a baseball bat for the killing. They obtained a shovel and a mattock for the burial, and lined a car boot with a curtain to prevent the spread of blood.
The trio then went to the victim's house in Tuggeranong, lured him outside and ran at him, chasing him across Athllon Drive and into bushland at night.
Duffy came across the victim but let him go after he begged not to be hurt.
The others arrived on the scene, forcing the victim to get on his knees and place his hands on his head.
The victim was hit and choked but managed to escape after he and one of the men rolled down into a nearby creek while scuffling.
Duffy was deemed eligible for Legal Aid and nominated Stubbs as his lawyer.
Stubbs met with Duffy's mother many times, but she was never told her son had been granted Legal Aid.
He asked for money from her on 12 occasions, and she paid him $30,620 between 2008 and October 2009.
Initially, she paid him in cash, but was not given receipts.
She then began transferring money into a Westpac bank account in Stubbs' name.
While still being paid by Duffy's mother, Stubbs began to approach Legal Aid, complaining about the "incredible amount of work in this matter with no assistance at all by way of additional funding".
Stubbs told Legal Aid that Duffy's mother was unwilling to pay for her son's legal bills and that her "financial circumstances precluded her from doing so".
He threatened to withdraw from the case due to the lack of funding.
Legal Aid began paying money into a NAB bank account, in the name of Diana Burns Solicitors, between May and November 2009.
ACT law prohibits lawyers who accept Legal Aid grants from receiving additional payments from a client. They are also required to inform the organisation if they become aware of anything relevant to the client's eligibility for Legal Aid.
The fraud came to light when Stubbs' restricted practising certificate expired.
The ACT Law Society council had resolved not to issue him with a renewed practising certificate for 2010-11.
That prompted a new solicitor to be appointed as manager of the firm.
He met with Mrs Duffy and discovered she had been paying Stubbs while he was receiving the Legal Aid payments.
The matter was referred to the police, who executed search warrants on a number of bank accounts.
Stubbs was charged with three offences of obtaining property by deception. He was committed to the ACT Supreme Court last week by Magistrate Robert Cook.
