IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA	Revised
Not Restricted
Suitable for Publication	
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

CR-23-01166

DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS (CTH)		
		
v		
		
PAOLO ESMAQUEL		

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JUDGE:	HIS HONOUR JUDGE MAIDMENT	
WHERE HELD:	Melbourne	
DATE OF HEARING:	19 & 20 August and 14 October 2024	
DATE OF SENTENCE:	8 November 2024	
CASE MAY BE CITED AS:	CDPP v Esmaquel	
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION:	[2024] VCC 1797	

REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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Subject:		Plea - sentencing
Catchwords:		Dishonestly obtain financial advantage by deception from Commonwealth entity - deal with proceeds of crime
Legislation Cited:	Crimes Act 1914 (Cth), Criminal Code (Cth)
Cases Cited:	Black v The Queen [2022] VSCA 125
Sentence:		5 years and 4 months' imprisonment, non-parole period 3 years and 
4 months
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APPEARANCES:
	Counsel	Solicitors	
For the DPP on 19/08/24,
20/08/24 and 14/10/24

For the DPP on 08/11/24	Ms M. Brown with
Mr E. Dober

Mr E. Dober	Office of Public Prosecutions	
			
For the Accused	Mr C. Hooper	Richard Revill Lawyers	

HIS HONOUR:  
1	Paolo Esmaquel, otherwise known as Angela Esmaquel, on 31 May 2024 you pleaded guilty to an offence of dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception from a Commonwealth entity by the submission of false claims for Medicare benefits between 20 May and 20 December 2022, for which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for 10 years, and to an offence of dealing with the proceeds of crime between the same dates to a value of $1m or more, for which the maximum penalty is imprisonment for 25 years.
2	You have also admitted and asked me to take into account in passing sentence two further similarly executed offences of dishonestly causing a loss to the same Commonwealth entity between the same dates, firstly, by directing the payment of falsely claimed Medicare benefits into bank accounts controlled by a criminally concerned associate, and secondly, by causing certain falsely claimed benefits, apparently in error, to be paid into bank accounts in the names of certain of the unwitting victims of your fraudulent conduct.
3	You have admitted a prior criminal history which includes court appearances and sentencing orders for offences of trafficking and possession of drugs of dependence and several offences involving dishonesty, including possessing counterfeit money, dealing with property suspected of being the proceeds of crime in 2021, and on 20 and 26 May 2022, at or about the commencement of the offending for which I am required to impose sentence, you were convicted of multiple offences including obtaining property by deception, theft of a motor vehicle, making a false document and dealing in property suspected of being the proceeds of crime.  
4	You were treated leniently on each occasion you appeared before the court and your engagement in this offending was plainly in breach of one or more community correction orders imposed by the Broadmeadows Magistrates Court.  Those latter court appearances could hardly have provided you with a clearer reminder of the need to avoid further criminal activity and of the possible consequences of the criminal activity that brought you before me.
5	The prosecution tendered as Exhibit A and read to the court a summary of prosecution opening upon plea dated 19 August 2024.  I summarise it briefly as follows:
6	Between 20 May and 20 December 2022, pursuant to an elaborate and carefully constructed fraudulent scheme, 1,858 Medicare claims were lodged with Services Australia using the identities of 147 genuine Medicare customers without their knowledge.  All those 1,858 Medicare claims were false.  They form the basis of the deception relevant to Charge 1.
7	As a result of those claims, Services Australia paid out a total of $7,311,959.10 into bank accounts controlled either by you or an associate of yours.  Based on the same Medicare claims, Services Australia paid a further $213,942.35, but those fraudulent payments, apparently as a result of an unintended error in the execution of the fraudulent scheme, were made directly to genuine bank accounts held by unwitting Medicare customers.  Those payments are the subject of the second of the two further offences you have asked me to take into account.
8	The prosecution case is that you lodged each of the 1,858 fraudulent Medicare claims, resulting in a total loss of Services Australia of $7,525,901.45.
9	I pause there in summarising the prosecution case to note that the prosecution submitted in argument during the plea hearings that I should find beyond reasonable doubt that you were the architect of your offending conduct and that you were not acting at the direction or insistence of another.  The prosecution accepted that there was evidence that other people were acting with you at your directions.	

10	Your counsel, Mr Hooper, argued in terms that I could not make the findings beyond reasonable doubt for which the prosecution contended to the effect that you were the architect and sole director of the fraudulent scheme.  He argued that the evidence does not exclude, and to some extent supports, the conclusion that your participation was conducted in the context of a much broader network of criminality and that the evidence only established that you personally submitted claims using the MacBook Pro 15 computer recovered by police.  
11	However, whilst Mr Hooper conceded during argument that it was open to me to find that you were culpable in the wider scheme on the basis that you were a knowing part of an organisation that made all the relevant claims, he submitted that I could not properly find beyond reasonable doubt that you acted alone or were otherwise solely or even directly responsible for actually submitting all of the claims relied upon by the prosecution.
12	I was also assisted by written and oral submissions by both the prosecution and defence.
13	Despite what appears to have been a very thorough investigation of your offending following your arrest on 20 December 2022, and the many cross-connections between different aspects of the evidence obtained which implicate you deeply in the control and execution of, and as a beneficiary of, the totality of the fraudulent activity, I accept that it is very difficult to exclude the possibility of others being covertly involved in the construction, direction or execution of such an elaborate scheme.  
14	No more than a very small number of people were identified by investigators as participants in, or beneficiaries of, the offending scheme, and none of them appeared to have any directorial or executive function in its creation or operation.  The role of those few persons identified was plainly much less significant than yours.  
15	I also note that the evidence demonstrates clearly that you were a very substantial financial beneficiary of the scheme, spending substantial sums of money freely and extravagantly on luxury goods from a very early stage of the operation of the scheme, that is, from 5 June 2022, which was the date of your  first known substantial expenditure, and you continued to spend in that way until the scheme was brought to a sudden end by your arrest on 20 December 2022.
16	Although you declined the opportunity to testify at the plea hearing as to the true extent or limitations of your role, I draw no inferences against you for the exercise of your right to silence.
17	On 14 October 2024, whilst indicating that I thought it highly probable the prosecution's submissions were well-founded, I ruled that I was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you were the architect of the fraudulent scheme or that you were its sole director or executive, but that I was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you were at least criminally responsible as an aider, abetter, counsellor or procurer for the entire offending between the dates set out in the charges, noting as I do s11.2, sub-s(7) of the Criminal Code (Cth), which makes it clear that you are guilty of Charge 1 as particularised in the indictment, whether you were the principal offender or an aider, abetter, counsellor or procurer.
18	However, I also make it clear that based on the totality of the evidence obtained during the investigation, I reject beyond reasonable doubt the claim that you made to Gina Cidoni, psychologist, during your consultations with her in July 2024 that you carried out your role in the offending as part of a syndicate of 'approximately 15 to 18 people.'
19	My conclusions about your role are reinforced by the fact that you also told Ms Cidoni during those consultations that one factor contributing to your involvement in the scheme was your desire to feel needed and your lack of purpose which drove you to utilise what you described as your 'computer skills in coding and data-based management.' 
20	It would be unrealistic, in my opinion, to accept as a reasonable possibility that during the period of the charged offending you deliberately held back in your application of such skills, until 10 November 2022 when the first of the transactions using the MacBook Pro 15 was conducted.  Yet, between 20 May 2022 and 10 November 2022, you were able to engage in extravagant spending of the proceeds of the criminal scheme throughout the intervening period on numerous occasions. I shall say a bit more about the MacBook Pro 15 computer later in my reasons.
21	Returning to my summary of the prosecution case, the target Commonwealth entity of the fraudulent scheme, Services Australia, is an Australian government agency responsible for delivering a range of welfare, health, child support payments and other services to eligible Australian citizens and permanent residents.  The agency delivers social services through the government programs Centrelink, Medicare, the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme and the Child Support Agency.  Services Australia is a Commonwealth entity.  
22	Services Australia administers Medicare on behalf of the Department of Health and Aged Care. Medicare covers free or subsidised treatment by health professionals such as doctors, specialists, optometrists, and in specific circumstances, dentists and other allied health professionals to eligible Australian citizens and permanent residents.
23	Medicare online claiming facilities enable medical practitioners to have a direct online computer connection to Medicare via Practice Management Software.  This software allows the medical practitioner to lodge patient claims through a secure internet connection. It is purchased by the participating medical practitioner from particular software vendors.  Only authorised Practice Management Software can connect to Medicare.
24	I shall not in the balance of these reasons for sentence repeat in any substantial detail the prosecution summary of how the fraudulent scheme operated, lest doing so stimulates others to copy your scheme.  Suffice to say that throughout the period covered by the charges, the organisation, of which you were clearly an integral part, dishonestly obtained authorised Practice Management Software, manipulated the Medicare claim system and circumvented the checks and balances designed to protect taxpayer funds allocated for genuine medical services, resulting in the diversion of such funds on the grand scale revealed by the investigation into accounts controlled by you and your criminal associates.
25	The details of the 147 entirely innocent persons whose Medicare consumer details were used to support your fraudulent claims were all dishonestly obtained.
26	In relation to Charge 2 on the indictment of dishonesty dealing with the proceeds of the fraudulent scheme, investigations identified specific amounts directed through bank accounts controlled by you or your associates totalling $1,966,552.10 within the following broad categories.  
27	Firstly, the sum of $594,414.92 through the purchase of luxury items paid by card or electronic transfer; $164,880.45 through purchase of luxury items using cash; $1,001,947.24 through transfers to accounts linked to you; $205,309.85 through transfers to your known associates.
28	The bank account statements also reveal significant transfers between accounts, substantial ATM withdrawals at recurring locations and in close proximity in time and place to one another, and to substantial purchases broadly related to travel, luxury hotels and luxury female fashion items.
29	By way of illustration of occasions upon which the evidence identifies you as personally dealing with the proceeds of the scheme from soon after the commencement of your offending, I note the following examples:	

30	On 5 June 2022, you made two purchases at the Louis Vuitton store at The Rocks, Sydney.  The first was at 4.51 pm in the amount of $1,680, the second was at 7.18 pm in the amount of $8,620.  These payments were made using a bank account in the name of Mark Bonfieni.
31	On 2 July 2022, in company with an accomplice who is yet to be sentenced, you made two purchases from Burberry, Melbourne, totalling $12,740.  
Part-payment was made using a bank account in the same name as that used in the first transaction.
32	Also on 2 July 2022, at 12.28 pm, you made a purchase of $10,735 at Temelli Jewellery at Collins, Melbourne.  Part-payment was made using a bank account in the same name as the first of those matters that I just referred to.
33	On 6 July 2022, you checked in and on 8 July 2022 paid $4,121.74 to Crown Towers, Melbourne using a bank account in the same name.
34	On 20 July 2022, you made payment of $16,650 to Louis Vuitton, Southbank, using a bank account in the same name.
35	On the same day you made a payment of $7,929.98 to Sofitel Melbourne using a bank account in the same name.
36	On 24 July 2022 at 3.56 pm, you purchased $27,000 worth of jewellery from Temelli Jewellery in Melbourne CBD using a bank account in the same name.
37	On 26 July 2022, you, this time posing as Ange Garcia, attended the Fendi shop at Chadstone and spent $37,280 using bank accounts in the same name as previous transaction examples.
38	The same day you attended at the Hotel Chadstone and booked a room for that day.
39	On 29 July 2022 you spent $18,870 at Fendi Chadstone using a bank account in the name of Brooke and Paul Hughes.
40	On 31 July 2022 at 4.37 pm, you made a $9,100 purchase at Gregory Jewellers at Highpoint using a bank account in the same names as I have just mentioned.
41	On 5 August 2022, you purchased items valued at $28,000 at the Louis Vuitton store in Collins Street using a bank account again in the name of Mark Bonfieni.
42	On 9 August 2022, you made a purchase of $19,400 at Louis Vuitton, Southbank, using a bank account in the name of Mark Bonfieni.
43	On 28 August 2022, you attended the Louis Vuitton Sydney store and made purchases totalling $36,110 using a bank account in the name of Evan Miller.
44	On 1 September 2022, you made a purchase totalling $14,594 at Harvey Norman, Preston, using a bank account in the name of Shaun Tolkin.
45	And so you continued with similar spending, culminating in transactions in December 2022 as follows:
46	On 6 December 2022 you made purchases totalling $44,030 at the Louis Vuitton store using a bank account in the name of Dr Arsema Abebe.
47	On 11 December 2022, you attended the Louis Vuitton Chadstone store and made purchases totalling $16,400 using a bank account in the name Prashanth Puspanathan.
48	I stress that the transactions to which I have just referred are not exhaustive.
49	In addition, during the period of the offending, you purchased two Mercedes motorcars, a Range Rover and a Toyota Kluger.
50	Further to evidence relating to specific transactions obtained from your MacBook Pro 15, evidence retrieved from other electronic devices, including your Apple iPhone 13 and Apple watch you used during the offending period, contained notifications relating to extensive bank transactions with institutions connected to the offending, as well as the purchase of luxury items.  Evidence retrieved from those various devices also correlates materially with evidence obtained from the Apple MacBook Pro 15 computer used by you during the latter part of the offending period and thereby implicating you in the wider dishonest scheme.
51	The evidence obtained from your electronic devices reveals that transactions known to be undertaken by you personally are cross-related to many of the remaining transactions revealed by bank accounts, or identities used by you, and by the nature, timing and location of those transactions and, in some cases, by the opening of relevant bank accounts.  The totality of that material, along with the evidence of your spending during the offending period, points strongly to a high level of criminal involvement in the execution of the scheme throughout the charged period.
52	On 20 December 2022 at 6.58 am, officers of the Australian Federal Police and Services Australia agents jointly executed a search warrant at Unit 8, 949 Mount Alexander Road, Essendon.  On entry there were four persons present, one of whom was you.  You had a significant bundle of $50 notes in your handbag which you described as 'under $10,000.'
53	You were arrested and taken to the Australian Federal Police Melbourne headquarters.  At 12.44 pm that day you participated in a recorded interview with Australian Federal Police officers and a Services Australia representative.
54	During that interview you admitted you used names Paolo Esmaquel, Angela Avery Esmaquel, Angela Avery, Angela Avery Garcia, Paolo Garcia Esmaquel and Paolo Vincente Esmaquel.  You made a mixture of some further admissions, false assertions and denials.  
55	Since your arrest no further offending relating to the operation of the scheme has occurred. As your counsel pointed out during the course of discussion at the plea hearing, that does not mean that you were the only one involved in the scheme, but it is consistent with you playing a very significant role in the scheme.
56	On 21 December 2022, Federal agents executed a search warrant at an address in Victoria Street, Altona Meadows.  This was the known address of your associate in the scheme who lived at that address and was present at the time the warrant was executed.  He is the person concerned with the first of the two further offences you have asked me to take into account.  His phone was seized and subjected to forensic analysis which revealed evidence incriminating both you and him as associates in the fraudulent scheme.  The receipt by him of proceeds of the fraudulent scheme are reflected in the first of the two offences you have admitted and asked me to take into account.  The evidence as a whole satisfies me beyond reasonable doubt that his role in the scheme was at a lower level and his culpability significantly less than yours.
57	Dealing with the Apple MacBook Pro 15 computer that was seized from the Mount Alexander Road address.
58	It was not disputed on your behalf that the computer was owned and at least predominantly used by you in the latter stages of the operation of the scheme.  Forensic analysis revealed that it was used between 10 November and 16 December to process 232 of the total 1,858 fraudulent transactions.  Through those 232 transactions, $1,128,332.85 was obtained in the execution of that part only of the scheme.  
59	Indeed, the fact that this was a relatively small portion of the 1,858 relevant fraudulent transactions was relied upon by Mr Hooper in support of his argument to the effect that, absent evidence from similar unrecovered devices that would have been used to process the other fraudulent transactions, there was insufficient evidence to support the prosecution's submission that you were the architect and sole director and executor of the scheme.
60	However, although evidence obtained from that device was clearly only part of the evidence relied upon by the prosecution, as I described earlier in my reasons, it correlates with other evidence revealed by your Apple iPhone 13 Promax, USBs, Apple iWatch and other items seized during the search of your Mount Alexander Road address to demonstrate your complicity and central role in the totality of the offending.
61	I move now to matters personal to you.
62	Your counsel provided me with written submissions dated 3 August 2024, which is Exhibit 1 on the plea hearing. He supplemented those written submissions with oral argument on 19 and 20 August 2024.  
63	He also provided me with an expert report from Simon Smith dated 13 May 2024, which became Exhibit 2, although I think it is right to say that in light of further evidence obtained by the prosecution from one of their experts, the report of Mr Smith was ultimately of little factual relevance to the eventual argument on the issues debated on 19 and 20 August 2024.  That, nevertheless, became Exhibit 2.
64	There was a report from Gina Cidoni, psychologist, dated 29 July 2024 (Exhibit 3). I will deal with that in more detail later in these reasons.
65	There were letters dated 5 July 2023 and 11 September 2024 from Witt Gorrie, social worker (collectively Exhibit 4).
66	There was a letter dated 14 August 2023 from Owen O'Neil, psychologist (Exhibit 5).
67	There were letters from Amy Lopes, undated, and George Karidis dated 16 August 2024, both as representatives of Thorne Harbour Health, which became Exhibit 6.
68	In addition, on 20 August 2024, Ms Cidoni, the author of Exhibit 3, gave sworn evidence before me.
69	In summary, your counsel made submissions in mitigation of sentence broadly under the following headings: 
70	He relied on delay and the conditions of custody whilst you were on remand from 20 December 2022, amounting to about one year and ten and a half months.  He relied on your plea of guilty which he submitted was consistent with and indicative of remorse, and had significant utilitarian value given the difficulties and the cost of presenting a jury trial if you had not pleaded guilty.
71	He dealt also with the law relating to the capacity to take into account the two further offences that you asked me to take into account and cautioned me to follow the legal guidelines in not imposing a separate sentence but taking them into account in a way which would enable me, if I thought it appropriate, to increase the sentence on one or other, or both, of the other two offences.  I do not think there is any dispute between the parties as to those legal requirements which I think are dealt with in detail in the prosecution submissions on sentence.
72	I note though in passing that those two offences and the facts relating to them pale into relative insignificance in terms of seriousness when compared with Charges 1 and 2 on the indictment to which you have pleaded guilty.
73	Your counsel next dealt with your mental health issues, your personal history generally, your home life, your country of origin, your movement between the Philippines and Australia, your employment, your drug history and the circumstances of the offending.
74	His plea ultimately was that although he recognised that an immediate sentence of imprisonment was inevitable in the case as serious as this, in all the circumstances of the case I should order a relatively short non-parole period.  I will go through and develop some of the other arguments as I deal in more detail with the arguments raised and the documents relied upon.
75	Turning first to the report of Ms Cidoni and noting her evidence before me.
76	She identifies a number of mental impairments from which you appear to have been suffering during the period of the offending and in some cases for many years beforehand:  a major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, gender dysphoria which seemed to be linked to borderline personality disorder, substance abuse disorders in relation to alcohol, stimulants, cannabis and GHB (severe), although she noted that that was in sustained remission in the controlled environment in which you were housed when she conducted her consultations with you in custody.  You also had an episodic mild gambling disorder which was also in sustained remission.
77	Under the heading of 'Offending Circumstances, as reported by Ms Esmaquel’, Ms Cidoni makes the point that you explained that one factor contributing to your involvement was a desire for acceptance and to feel needed due to your lack of purpose at that time in your life, that is during the offending period. As we all did in this court during the plea hearing, Ms Cidoni referred to you as 'she' out of respect for the fact that you identify now, and have done for some years, as a female.  
78	I go on quoting from Ms Cidoni’s report:
'… as she was able to utilise her computer skills in coding a database management.  She said that she was the only individual charged among what she understood were approximately 15 to 18 people in the syndicate.  Reflecting on her situation, she acknowledged that while she was unaware of the large scale of the fraud at the time, she had since grown from the experience.  She recognised that the decision to participate in the fraud was wrong and that it caused distress to her mother.'  
79	Ms Cidoni went on: 
'She explained that her motivation for the offending stemmed from a lack of choices, financial desperation and difficulty securing employment after her gender transition, which led her to seek money from other avenues rather than return to escorting work.  Although aware that her actions would eventually lead to consequences, she felt indifferent due to her life feeling directionless at the time including coinciding with a suicide attempt.'
80	I noted during the plea hearing, and took it up with Ms Cidoni, that your offending could hardly be described as borne out of financial desperation, at least after the first transaction or two and it is not reflected in the fact that you embarked on your large-scale extravagant expenditure from 5 June 2022, just a few days after the commencement of the offending.
81	Ms Cidoni helpfully set out your relevant life history: that you were from a Filipino background, born there, moved to Australia with your family in 1990 when you had just turned four.  You were born male but now identify as a woman using 'she'/'her' pronouns, and Ms Cidoni said that you described your upbringing as good, characterised by quality time, love, care and support, despite your parents' busy schedules.
82	Your parents have been together for 40 years, were always kind and are still close to you, visiting you in prison every week.  Your family are supportive of your transition from male to female, which you revealed to them in August 2018.  Both your parents and your siblings expressed their support and have brought you suitable clothing for a female.
83	When you were about 13, your family moved back to the Philippines as your mother was concerned about the violence and drug culture in Braybrook where you were living.  Another motivation for wanting the family to stay in the Philippines was that your parents wanted their children to see the Philippines as their home, not just as a holiday destination.
84	You told Ms Cidoni that you experienced a culture shock because attitudes were different in the Philippines, and due to your difficulties adjusting you moved back and forth between Australia and the Philippines during 2002.  Eventually the family moved back to Australia in 2005 when you were aged about 19 and you and your brother could then continue with your education with better opportunities.  In more recent times you have lived with your parents in Niddrie.  
85	You have an older sister aged 40 and one younger brother aged 34 and you have always felt close to them.  No doubt they provide you with moral support.	

86	You attended university in the Philippines for one semester, studying political science, but left due to poor mental health, substance abuse and self-harming attempts.  You completed VCE when you returned to Australia at Victoria University and began legal studies, but chose to work instead of continuing your education.
87	You had a job starting at the age of 15 and you have worked for Media Monitors, now called Isentia, for about four years.  After that you opened your own cupcake shop, running it successfully for 10 and a half years until you sold that business in 2018.
88	The report indicates that following that sale you struggled with a loss of purpose, leading to drug use and to association with negative peer influences.  You attempted other businesses and worked as an escort intermittently and continued to do that after 2018.
89	You endured a significant assault in 2018 by drug peers and ended up at the trauma centre at the Alfred Hospital.
90	Your substance abuse began in 2000, or thereabouts, with alcohol whilst you were still in the Philippines.  You began by consuming heavily on weekends.  The last time you used alcohol was in November 2022, just before your arrest.  You started using methamphetamine in 2007 due to influence of friends, initially intermittently.  However, your use became daily by 2017 and that led to your consuming approximately a gram of methamphetamine daily by injecting half a point every four hours.  That pattern continued until your arrest in December 2022.  Your use of GHB started in 2018 and daily consumption of 50 to 100 millilitres continued until your arrest.  You also began using cannabis around 2018, consuming daily, and your last cannabis use was two days before your arrest in December 2022.  Occasionally you used heroin and cocaine.
91	You had an intermittent gambling habit, it seems.  Your last gambling activity was in November 2022.
92	Ms Cidoni considered your risk of reoffending to be moderate and in paragraph 103 of her report she describes your motivations for your offending as:
'… multi-faceted, stemming from a combination of emotional, psychological and practical factors.  One of the primary reasons she [that is you] cited was a profound sense of financial desperation.  After her gender transition, she faced significant challenges in securing stable and legitimate employment.  This difficulty in finding work was compounded by societal prejudices and discrimination against transgender individuals, which further limited her opportunities.  Feeling marginalised and unable to re-enter the workforce in a meaningful way, she turned to illegal activities as a means of survival.'
93	I have already indicated that the question of ‘survival’ certainly did not persist beyond the first day or two or three, or within a very short period of the commencement of your offending, because you clearly had plenty of money to spend, or throw away, on luxury goods.
94	At paragraph 105, Ms Cidoni says:
'Substance abuse played a critical role in her offending behaviour.  Her longstanding issues with drugs, including methamphetamine, GHB and cannabis, significantly impaired her judgment and decision-making abilities.  Substance use exacerbated her existing mental health conditions such as Major Depressive Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and general dysphoria, heightening her emotional distress and reducing her capacity to make rational decisions.  The disinhibiting effects of drugs led her to engage in risky and impulsive behaviours, including the fraudulent activities she is now charged with.'
95	And then at 107 she says:
'The desire to avoid returning to escort work also played a significant role in her decision to engage in fraudulent activities.'
96	It was not suggested by your counsel that your drug use was a mitigating factor, it was simply a factor in your mental processes and a factor which was a significant part of your life during the period leading up to and including the period of your offending.
97	This is not a case where, because of childhood deprivation, for example, you turned to substance abuse or that you were introduced to substance abuse at such an early age that you really did not have any capacity to exercise sound judgment or control, but it is a case where, for one reason or another, you have chosen to follow the path of substance abuse and have pursued it over a period of years.  No doubt that has been influenced by your mental health issues, arising perhaps primarily from your gender dysphoria.  
98	I will say a bit more about that because it is a significant factor in your life. I recognise that, and nothing I say is designed to be disrespectful of your right to make the decision to transition.  It has, clearly, and this is borne out by other exhibits, including Exhibits 4, 5 and 6 in the plea material, caused you considerable difficulties in an adult male prison. It will have caused you considerable difficulties because, for your own protection as I understand it, you have been in a management unit and therefore deprived of the usual social interactions, and such social interactions as you have had are, naturally perhaps, attended by the kind of bullying, harassment, and perhaps worse that is notoriously meted out to persons such as yourself who have found themselves in a male prison whilst identifying as a female.
99	It seems to me that that is a very significant factor in determining the sentence that I should impose upon you.  Not because it reduces your moral culpability but because it will affect the way in which you cope with your term of imprisonment and the degree to which your mental health issues may be exacerbated by continual tensions in such an environment.
100	I have been significantly assisted by Exhibits 4, 5 and 6, as well as at least parts of Ms Cidoni's report on those issues, and it seems to me to be something which should properly reduce the period of your imprisonment, and properly supports the submission by your counsel that some mitigation can also be applied to the length of your non-parole period.
101	I have no doubt failed to do justice to the submissions of Mr Hooper in these reasons but I have endeavoured to canvass some of the more important issues.  I take into account in full the submissions he has made and I have not ignored any of them. I have endeavoured to give you the appropriate credits where credits are due.
102	I am also cognisant of the fact that s16A(1) Crimes Act 2014 (Cth) (‘Crimes Act’) requires me to impose a sentence that is appropriate to your offending conduct, and sub-s(2) of that section requires me to take into account such of the various matters that are set out there as appear to be relevant.  Without going through those, they are dealt with I think in some detail, and very helpfully, by the prosecution in their submissions.  I recognise that although s17A of the Crimes Act requires me only to impose a sentence of imprisonment if that is the only reasonable option - I am paraphrasing - it seems to me that everybody at the bar table is ad idem that an immediate term of imprisonment is the only sentence that I can impose for offences as serious as these.
103	The prosecution provided me with sentencing submissions which became Exhibit C at the plea hearing.  They characterise your offending as protracted, sophisticated, blatant, motivated by greed and facilitated by serious compromise of personal identification information, facilitated by thousands of individual deliberate repeated acts of criminality and for an extremely high amount of money obtained.  
104	There is no doubt that the totality of the funds - considerably more than $7m - is a very substantial sum of money to acquire in such a relatively short period of time.
105	The prosecution deal with Charge 2 on the basis that the relevant amount in which you dealt for the purposes of that charge was $1,966,552.10.  They note that the quantum was substantial, well above the minimum for the commission of that offence.  The conduct was engaged in over a seven-month period, included a significant number of individual transactions, and the dealing went beyond funding luxury lifestyle into extravagant dealing.  It certainly went beyond anything needed to bring you out of an impoverished state.
106	They deal with the nature and circumstances of the offending, the period of the offending - seven months - the sophisticated nature of the offending and a lack of any real contrition.
107	You contested the facts relevant to the plea, and I found in your favour, so I am not suggesting that you should not have done so.  I accept that my finding serves to reduce the sentence that I would otherwise have been required to impose upon you, but I am not sure it decreases your culpability a great deal; you were still heavily involved and at the centre of the offending despite the fact that you were, or may not have been, the ‘architect’ of the offending.  I am not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you were, nor am I satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you were not, acting at the direction or insistence of another, although I am certainly satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you were an aider, abetter, counsellor or procurer in the whole of the offending period and were central to the execution of the scheme.
108	The prosecution also deals with other offences taken into account and identifies the legal principles that I need to apply.  I take note and I shall endeavour to apply those principles in the way in which I pass sentence upon you.
109	The prosecution points out that the offending conduct involved a very large number of individual acts on your part.  It required care and a willingness, quite mercilessly, to exploit an honesty-based system for personal gain.  Much depends upon the honesty of users of systems such as the Medicare payment system given that it is so widely used. For Government to impose impossibly high standards of security, over and above those that already exist within the system, tends to slow down the system and make it more costly, leading to less money being available for genuine claimants.  In that sense, the offending is of a particularly serious kind and one that requires the court to pay proper regard to the need for general deterrence.
110	In paragraph 14 of the prosecution's submissions, they submit that whilst both Charges 1 and 2 are rolled-up the court is required to assess the criminality of an offender's conduct as particularised, that is, the issue is the criminality disclosed by the offence, not the number of charges.  The more contraventions or episodes of criminality that form part of the charge the more objectively serious the offence is likely to be.  There were 1,858 transactions which led to the money that you obtained but there were also many, many acts which were required to ensure that those transactions were successful in obtaining the money that you sought.
111	I am required to take into account any injury, loss or damage resulting from the offence, and I do.  
112	I was reminded of a decision in Black v The Queen where the Victorian Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, said at paragraph 21:
'Offences relating to the social security system are widespread, relatively easy to commit and can pass unnoticed.  A social security system relies on the honesty of its recipients.  Fraud creates a heavy burden on the Australian government's revenue, the community and taxpayers.  Those who abuse the system can engender public loss of confidence in the social security system and create the risk of demonising those who genuinely need such assistance.  
‘Further, fraud can undermine the integrity of the social security system and may lead to the imposition of additional checks, which would make the delivery of services slower and more cumbersome, disadvantaging genuine applicants.'
113	Your plea of guilty of course is relevant.  It followed a contested committal, as was pointed out by the prosecution.  I note though that the degree of contrition that is connected with that plea has to be tempered by the fact that you made no effort to assist in the identification of the precise role that you played or assist investigators in the unravelling of your offending conduct.
114	I note also that you refused to provide passcodes on all electronic devices following a direction by investigators to do so.  Your prospects of repaying any of the lost money are very slim indeed, other than that which is obtained from the sale of some of the luxury items that were in your possession at the time of your arrest.  I note that steps have already been taken to identify those items and their value for the purposes of recovery, but it is a drop in the ocean compared with the many millions of dollars that the Commonwealth is out-of-pocket, and that increases the equivalent burden on the taxpayer.
115	I am reminded of the importance of both general and specific deterrence, and I think that given that you have been given many chances by the courts in the past and have failed to heed the warnings or to comply with community correction orders that were made in respect of your previous offending, that individual deterrence remains a significant sentencing factor.  Of course, general deterrence is a very significant sentencing factor in a case such as this.
116	I am required to take into account the need for adequate punishment, your character, antecedents, age, means and physical and mental condition, and I have endeavoured to identify the matters that bear upon those factors including your mental health and drug abuse history.
117	I am required to assess your prospects of rehabilitation.  It seems to me that despite the relative optimism of Ms Cidoni's opinion that your risk of reoffending is moderate, your prospects of rehabilitation must necessarily be guarded and will depend significantly on your capacity to address your mental health issues, particularly your gender dysphoria, and to address permanently your drug abuse issues.  
118	There is no doubt that delay is relevant.  Although it is not particularly significant in this case, there has been some part of that period on remand where you have been the subject of some of the COVID restrictions still within the prison system but the period that you have had on remand is post the most restrictive regimes of the COVID period.
119	Marrying all those various points and feeding them into what I am required to do, which is an instinctive synthesis of all of the factors that bear upon sentence, I am ready to proceed to sentence you.
120	Paolo Esmaquel, otherwise known as Angela Esmaquel, on Charge 1 you are convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for five years and four months.	

121	On Charge 2 you are convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for three years and nine months.
122	Both of those offences are bound up one with the other and it seems to me that in all the circumstances both sentences should commence today. I note that in arriving at those sentences, I have taken into account the two further related offences you have admitted and asked me to take into account in determining the appropriate sentences for the two charges on the indictment.
123	I note also, and repeat, that I would have passed a much more significant and substantial sentence upon you had it not been for your gender dysphoria issues, your mental health issues and the added strain of identifying as a female in a male prison.  It is difficult to imagine how much more difficult serving a sentence would be in that circumstance and it seems to me that that should properly reduce the head sentence as well as the non-parole period.
124	The total effective sentence is therefore imprisonment for five years and four months and I fix a period of three years and four months before you are eligible for parole.
125	But for your pleas of guilty I would have sentenced you to imprisonment for seven years and six months with a non-parole period of five years.
126	I declare pre-sentence detention of 689 days as time to be reckoned as served on the sentence that I have imposed.
127	MR DOBER:  There are two relevant ancillary orders, Your Honour.  There's the application for forfeiture and a revised order has been provided to Your Honour's associate since Your Honour commenced making remarks, and also a reparation order.
128	HIS HONOUR:  Yes.
129	MR DOBER:  Two separate orders.
130	HIS HONOUR:  Do you want me to make both of those orders today.
131	MR DOBER:  Those two orders, yes please, Your Honour.
132	HIS HONOUR:  I make the forfeiture order and reparation order in accordance with the drafts that have been prepared.  
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