A crooked accountant who defrauded clients of more than $2 million and then gambled most of it away at Crown casino has been jailed for at least four years. Kaylene Maree Hussen ripped off 229 individual clients and five companies between 2010 and 2014 using several methods of deception at her Geelong West business PTS Tax and Accounting, the County Court heard. Her frauds included altering business activity statements and retaining tax credits, preparing bogus tax returns or inflating genuine ones and then keeping people’s refunds, and obtaining cash loans from banks for fictitious investments. “A number of your victims were vulnerable people such as the aged and disabled, (those) not with high incomes and were dependent on monies lost and their relationships with you,” Judge Bourke said on Tuesday, before formalising the sentence on Wednesday.
