Lawyers for a family charged with making thousands of fraudulent transactions are fighting to have the case thrown out of court.
The lawyer for a family accused of making more than 28,000 fraudulent Medicare transactions worth almost $3m has attempted to get the matter thrown out of court, saying there is “no evidence” against his clients.
Jeremias Olivier, who ran a dental van business, his wife Johannah and their two daughters Venessa and Michelle were not required to appear in Sydney’s Downing Centre Local Court on Thursday.
All four members of the family have been charged with two counts of obtaining a financial advantage by deception.
No pleas have been entered, with Mr Douglas looking to have the charges withdrawn.
NCA NewsWire can reveal the commonwealth alleges the family made 28,268 fraudulent Medicare claims worth $2,920,189.40.
According to court documents, the four members of the Olivier family were alleged to have dishonestly obtained a financial advantage from the commonwealth by obtaining Medicare payments that they were not entitled to.
The family allegedly obtained the false payments between July 18, 2013, and December 19, 2014.
Solicitor Cabral Douglas filed submissions for section 82 hearing in April which took place on Thursday, where he argued for witnesses who are included in the brief of evidence to be called into court and cross-examined.
A representative from the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions told the court the case relies on the evidence of seven dentists, who say they never referred radiology images for Mr Olivier’s company to claim Medicare benefits.
“The claims are alleged to be dishonest, they all name a dentist who say they didn’t refer any radiology images to anyone,” the prosecutor said.
“The Crown says these claims for Medicare benefits are dishonest … and relies on the evidence of the practitioners.”
Mr Douglas told the court the matter is an “abuse of the court’s process” and there “is not one scintilla of documentary evidence which has been produced by Prosecution to support these malicious allegations”.
“My learned friend has come here today to accuse my clients of making 28, 268 ‘fraudulent transactions’ stealing 3 million dollars from the Commonwealth, through a complex electronic system, where all transactions are recorded, without producing a single document to support their outrageous allegations,” Mr Douglas said.
“I would go as for to say, and the evidence will show, that this matter is nothing more than a fishing expedition carried out by the Department of Health for the better part of a decade, and enough is enough, the buck needs to stop here.”
The Section 82 submissions, seen by NCA NewsWire, reveal that the Smiles Onsite business employed 60 people and treated more than 30,000 schoolchildren across rural and remote Australia.
“Many of whom had never been to the dentist prior, making the program very popular and of great value to schools,” the submissions detail.
The family strongly maintains their innocence, with Mr Olivier saying he had his home and businesses raided by federal police in 2014 and 2017.
“About 20 federal police officers seized our documents, which as one can imagine put a fright into the family and our employees, many of whom were forced to resign by government investigators, but even then, I never could have imagined in my wildest nightmare that it would come to this,” Mr Olivier said.
He started the dental vans in 2011, initially sending them to aged care homes to take advantage of a Medicare benefit scheme.
But when it ended he rebranded them to take advantage of Medicare’s Child Dental Benefit Scheme, which gave children $1000 worth of dental work, according to court documents.
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