The two founders of the property finance company Australian Capital Reserve will face a committal hearing on criminal charges related to the $332 million collapse of the company.

Samuel Pogson, 49, from Wahroonga, and Murray Lapham, 48, from Turramurra, have been on bail since they were charged in March with one count each of making a false statement to obtain a financial advantage for ACR.

Mr Pogson was later charged with a second offence of making or omitting a matter from a document to make it misleading.

Both men, who are due to appear in the Downing Centre Local Court for the day-long hearing, are accused of misleading investors in their sixth prospectus lodged on April 7, 2004.

The prospectus claimed that ”as at December 31, 2003 the [parent company] Castle Investment Company Limited and controlled entities’ profit before income tax was $7,409,483”, court records state.

Both men are accused of knowing this statement was false or misleading because the pre-tax profit ”took into account sales revenues that were not transactions that had properly occurred prior to 31 December 2003”.

The charges against the two former real estate agents were brought by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Two ASIC investigators served the men with court notices in March.

ACR, a subsidiary of the Estate Property Group, raised so-called ”mezzanine” or second-ranking development finance from small investors using deposit notes paying interest of as much as 10 per cent a year.

(Source: Vanda Carson, SMH, December 1, 2010)

About Rushmore Forensic

Andrew Firth is a Director of Rushmore Forensic. He has worked on a number of investigations tracing property financing transactions and other alleged frauds involving mortgage brokers.  He has also acted as an expert witness in property and money tracing related cases.

He is a forensic accountant based in Sydney. Andrew can be contacted directly for a confidential and complimentary discussion.