Protecting himself from his gambling addiction or hiding his money from a rapacious sister are just some of the “fanciful” explanations former bankrupt Warren Jack gave to a Sydney court about the $400,000 in cash he claimed to have given his employee-turned-girlfriend.
District Court Judge Robert Newlinds said that, in 2019, Jack and his employee Julie Bevacqua were in a romantic relationship, during the course of which she made two loans to her boss totalling just over $400,000.
Two years later, Bevacqua lent Jack $500,000 “to buy a very expensive Ferrari motor vehicle”. This loan was repaid, the court heard.
But the earlier loans were not and, in May 2024, Bevacqua issued letters of demand over the $400,000 in loans, which Jack ignored. Bevacqua then launched proceedings in the District Court.
Jack, who was self-represented and gave evidence from the Philippines, said he repaid the money in cash “in either a leather bag, or two leather bags” when Bevacqua came to his house for dinner in November 2019.
He said $102,000 of the cash total was the repayment of a loan, but the remaining $300,000 was his own gambling winnings. He said he was giving it to Bevacqua for safekeeping “because he could not trust himself not to gamble the money away”.
The judge rejected Jack’s account of handing over $400,000 in cash “in black bags” on November 19, 2019. “To put it bluntly, his explanation is implausible, makes no sense, and I do not believe him,” the judge said.
Newlinds said Jack’s evidence had changed several times and, at one stage, he offered that he’d given the money to Bevacqua “because he needed to protect his own assets and those of his company’s from his sister, who at the time he alleged was stealing money from him and/or his company”.
Jack also said the cash was hidden in a cupboard in the house of Bevacqua’s elderly father, which her father shared with his paraplegic son.
“Quite frankly,” said the judge, “I cannot think of a less safe place to store $400,000 than in a cupboard, in a disused bedroom, in a house where various unknown cleaners and carers come in and out of on a regular basis.”
‘To put it bluntly, his explanation is implausible, makes no sense, and I do not believe him.’
District Court Judge Robert Newlinds
The judge also said he did not understand why Jack “did not simply put the money in a bank account”.
In ordering him to repay the two loans – which with interest is now $467,866 – Newlinds said: “I am satisfied that the plaintiff still thought they were in a romantic relationship and still trusted him till much longer after he had decided to move on with the lady who is now his current wife, and decamp to the Philippines, it seems, with a large amount of his or his company’s assets.”
According to his LinkedIn profile, Jack, 59, is the current CEO at the Australian Institute of Training. However, in December 2024, this vocational training company, like a number of Jack’s similarly named previous training ventures, was deregistered.
In October 2024, another of his training companies, Skills Training Australia Group, was stripped of its registration following “an extensive compliance investigation”.
“The integrity of VET qualifications is a primary focus – there is no place for any provider who seeks to undermine the sector or exploit students,” said a spokesperson for the regulator, the Australian Skills Quality Authority.
The ASQA investigation found that Jack’s company was incapable of delivering quality vocational training and that it had failed to pass a financial risk assessment. Jack’s company did not co-operate with the investigation.
In 2016, Jack was fined $50,000 after he was prosecuted by Auburn Council for illegally using his Lidcombe property, which was zoned residential, as a training centre.
At a subsequent public inquiry into Auburn Council, Jack said a councillor had asked for a bribe to make his problems go away. Commissioner Richards Beasley, SC, rejected Jack’s evidence. In his 2017 final report, the commissioner wrote: “Mr Jack is a man prone to confusion and, to an extent, paranoia … He appears easily agitated and prone to hyperbole.“
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