Dementia – no prison for Holocaust survivor
81-year-old Peter Agoston will not face trial for attempting to defraud the Australian Tax Office of almost $9 million.Agoston, who was incarcerated in a concentration camp in Hungary, faced Sydney District Court last week where Judge Christopher Geraghty ruled that a jury could convict him of the fraud.
But the judge took into consideration Agoston’s poor health and confirmation that he had been diagnosed with dementia and ruled that it ould be “inappropriate to inflict any punishment.”
The judge also referred to the cruelty Agoston would have sustained as a prisoner of the Nazis.
Agoston’s offences related ti tax returned filed between 1995 and 2000. He stood accused of overstating spending in the production of four doucmentary films. The offences were discovered by Tax Office investigators as a result of an audit , resulting in lo loss of revenue to the Commonwealth.