A doctor who once claimed to be worth $100 million has been jailed for a year for manipulating the sharemarket for financial gain.
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Supreme Court Justice Stephen Kaye said Dr Mervyn Jacobson, 72, had had a dramatic fall from grace and suffered genuine feelings of humiliation and embarrassment.
"The shame attached to your offending is not an insignificant penalty to you," Justice Kaye told Dr Jacobson on Friday.
Dr Jacobson was jailed for a total of two years and eight months but ordered to serve 12 months before being released on a 20-month good behaviour bond. He was also banned from managing any corporation for five years.
The judge said Dr Jacobson had to be jailed for such a serious white collar crime despite his involvement in a number of important and worthwhile causes, his ill-health and his previous exceptionally good character.
He said Dr Jacobson, who has homes in Switzerland and the United States, was having difficulty coping with the jury's verdict and had been overwhelmed and shocked to have been found guilty.
Dr Jacobson, of Brighton, was convicted of manipulating the sharemarket to prop up his biotech company's share price.
The father-of-three denied claims he was a "fraudster" but was found guilty of 35 charges of conspiracy to manipulate the market and fund transactions to create an artificial share price between May and November 2006.
Dr Jacobson had made his fortune after setting up Genetic Technologies, which holds valuable patents for DNA and breast cancer testing.
He had been researching human genetic material before his company invented a method to obtain valuable information located within what is called the non-coding DNA of all species.
The Crown case was that Dr Jacobson's daughter, Tamara, and her second husband, Geoffrey Newing, of Toorak, acted illegally and were heavily involved with Dr Jacobson in manipulating the price of GeneticTechnologies shares on the Australian Stock Exchange.
Much of Dr Jacobson's wealth was tied up in the company and his financial stability was dependent on the company's success and its share price.
So when the share price began to fall and Dr Jacobson started receiving margin calls on a $11.4 million loan with Opes Prime, Dr Jacobson gave more than $1.55 million to his daughter.
Tamara, her husband and two stockbrokers then used the money to buy Genetic Technologies shares on the ASX to maintain the price at an artificially high level.
Dr Jacobson admitted giving Tamara large sums of money but claimed the cash was a gift.
Tamara pleaded guilty to insider trading charges and received a fully suspended 21-month jail term. Newing also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 22 months' jail with 16 months suspended.
The jury was told during Dr Jacobson's trial that he had been instrumental in saving the brush-tailed wallaby from extinction; was a major supporter of a wolf sanctuary in Colorado; was trying to save the endangered wolves of Ethiopia, the white rhinoceros and the pygmy hippopotamus; and had helped to save the dairy industry in England during the mad cow disease crisis in the 1990s.
