A $100,000 payment to a Las Vegas casino, $4000 on merchandise including plasma screen televisions and almost $85,000 in rent on a luxury Bondi apartment: the criminal trial of Oliver Curtis has offered a glimpse of the big-spending lifestyle of an alleged insider trader.
Mr Curtis, the husband of Sydney public relations queen Roxy Jacenko, has pleaded not guilty to a charge of insider trading stemming from a deal he allegedly struck in 2007 with his former best friend John Hartman to exploit confidential information to cash in on shifts in share prices.
The St Ignatius College Riverview old boys were then working at boutique investment banks in the Sydney CBD.
Documents tendered in the NSW Supreme Court on Tuesday show the healthy profits made by the duo, then aged in their early 20s, betting in shifts in the price of shares including Woolworths, JB Hi-Fi, Caltex, Lion Nathan and Harvey Norman.
The court has heard the men netted $1.43 million between mid-2007 and 2008.
The documents also show a series of payments made by Mr Curtis to Mr Hartman, along with an upfront rent and bond payment of $84,210 and $3999 on TVs and merchandise when the then-best friends moved into a $3000-a-week Bondi apartment in early 2008. This was half the cost of the rent and merchandise for their new apartment.
The court has heard Mr Curtis made a separate payment of $100,000 to the Wynn Las Vegas resort and casino ahead of a luxury holiday in 2008 but the transfer was not recorded in the documents tendered on Tuesday.
Mr Hartman, the prosecution's star witness, has given evidence he tipped off Mr Curtis about lucrative trades, using confidential information he acquired in his job as an equities dealer at boutique investment firm Orion Asset Management.
But Mr Curtis' defence barrister, Murugan Thangaraj, SC, said on Tuesday "the person receiving the tip might be guilty or might not be guilty" of an offence. "It just depends on the facts of the case."
The defence team has urged the jury to consider if Mr Hartman turned on Mr Curtis to reduce his own jail time.
Mr Hartman has already served a 15-month sentence for insider trading after pleading guilty to a string of offences, only some of which are related to the deal the prosecution alleges was struck between the two men.
Mr Thangaraj noted Mr Hartman did not plead guilty to the offence at the heart of his former friend's trial, namely, conspiring with Mr Curtis to use inside information.
The court heard on Tuesday the investigating authority, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC), knew Mr Hartman made millions from potentially illegal insider trading on his own behalf but only $1.59 million was confiscated.
He was charged in relation to offences tied only to that amount of cash. ASIC lawyer Robert McAlpine said he was also aware of a $150,000 transfer from Mr Hartman to his father that was not clawed back.
"Did Mr Hartman ever disclose to you [that payment] ... or did you discover it?" Mr Thangaraj said.
"I discovered it," Mr McAlpine said.
The trial continues before Justice Lucy McCallum.
