Former ATSIC chief Geoff Clark jailed for defrauding Framlingham Indigenous community

Former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) chief executive Geoff Clark has been sentenced to six years and two months in prison after being found guilty of defrauding his community in south-west Victoria of nearly $1 million.

Clark faces three consecutive jury trials beginning December 1, 2023; The fourth and final hearing was canceled and the charge was dismissed in September of this year.

The 72-year-old south-west Victorian Indigenous leader has been in custody since September 11 after being found guilty of 25 charges spanning roughly two decades against the local Indigenous community in Framlingham, near Warrnambool.

Clark ascended to the chairmanship of the now-defunct ATSIC in 1999, effectively making him the most powerful Indigenous man in Australia for a brief period in the early 2000s.

His offending related to his role in various Indigenous organizations connected to the Framlingham community.

Court heard Clarke used his position for his own personal gain

Clark became the leader of his community in Framlingham in the late ’70s and led it off and on for nearly three decades.

The District Court heard Clark used his position as director of the Framlingham Aboriginal Trust and his relationship with other affiliated organizations for his own personal benefit.

Clark pleaded not guilty to 38 charges and was found guilty of 25 charges in three trials; the fourth was canceled after his son Jeremy Clark agreed to plead guilty and the prosecution withdrew the charge against Geoff Clark.

Some of the 25 charges Clark was found guilty of To pay his legal fees to fight several high-profile cases in the 2000s, including civil District Court hearings in 2007 that found Clark committed two counts of group rape against Carol Anne Stingel in 2007. It’s about using community money for

Juries in recent trials also found Clark guilty of using community money to pay interest and utility bills on four properties Clark owned and then lying about his ownership of those properties in bankruptcy proceedings, triggering perjury and perjury charges.

In other cases, he pocketed the rent on a foundation-owned property and the royalties on a foundation-owned eel fishing license.

Clark’s total winnings were estimated at $922,215; The $400,000 was refunded after the community filed a lawsuit against Clark.

His son, Jeremy Clark, 51, also pleaded not guilty to 20 fraud-related charges in two cases. He was found guilty on seven and pleaded guilty to the eighth charge.

Jeremy Clark was sentenced to two years and two months in prison and completely suspended for two years. and was given a two-month and two-year good behavior bail.

At the execution stage, Geoff, his wife Trudy and sons Aaron and Jeremy Clarke faced more than 1,000 charges in total.

By the time the cases went to trial, Trudy Clark’s charges had been dropped and Aaron Clark’s only remaining charge had been resolved through the diversionary process.

Treated community resources as ‘his’

In handing down the sentence, Judge Michael O’Connell told the District Court that it was “difficult to reconcile the conflict between the good (that Geoff Clark had done) for his community and the wrongs he had committed against society”.

Judge O’Connell said Clark took advantage of weak governance structures in the Framlingham community and adopted a “carefully calculated course of conduct to divert funds to personal purposes”.

“You came to treat the resources of the community as if they were your own,” he said.

Judge O’Connell highlighted evidence that Clark had presented an auditor’s report to a community meeting detailing the difficult financial situation which would lead to staff being made redundant over Christmas and the community suffering.

“(At the time) you knew you had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars … and if it weren’t for your dishonesty, the financial situation of the community would not have been this bad,” he said.

Judge O’Connell said Clark had shown no remorse.

Clark has served 78 days in pre-sentence detention and will be eligible for parole in approximately three and a half years.