Former Education Department big wig Nino Napoli allegedly pocketed nearly half a million dollars from a rort that swindled money from needy state schools.
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Court documents released on Thursday reveal the extent to which Mr Napoli benefited from the most high-profile scam to hit Victoria's Education Department, which involved creating false invoices and charging schools for services that didn't exist.
They show that between 2007 and 2014, Mr Napoli received $448,476 from false invoices and distributed a further $255,363 to his relatives.
The documents were released on the first day of the committal hearing for Mr Napoli, who was last year charged with 152 separate criminal charges.
These include conspiring to defraud, dealing with the proceeds of crime, perverting the course of justice and furnishing false information by producing false invoices for services that never existed or were never provided.
During cross-examination, one of the key prosecution witnesses, Mr Napoli's distant relative Daniel Calleja, spoke about how he invoiced the Department for work he never did. He said he would then pass on this money to Mr Napoli's brother Robert.
"I was receiving a small cut from those invoices," he told the Melbourne Magistrate's Court.
Mr Napoli watched on as Mr Calleja detailed how the former senior Education Department manager told him to inflate invoices.
"I told the truth, that's what I wanted to do," he said.
In one case, he alleges that Mr Napoli told him to add an extra $20,000 to an $120,000 invoice for legitimate work for the Department.
"I said to Nino, "I don't want to quote this too high, I don't want to lose this job. Nino told me it would be fine, he didn't tell me why I should put the quote up," Mr Calleja said in a document tendered to the court.
Mr Calleja, who runs a video production company, said Mr Napoli helped him set up the business and mentored him. He has since changed the name of his business because "the reputation of the brand was corrupted".
The allegedly false invoices issued to the Department came from companies registered to Mr Napoli's relatives. It's claimed some of these companies only existed to defraud the Department.
Mr Napoli, who oversaw a $5.5 billion budget when he worked at the Department of Education, allegedly used his position to ensure the invoices submitted by his relatives were paid without scrutiny.
The rort was the subject of an Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission inquiry titled Operation Ord, which identified millions of dollars siphoned from schools.
