Taylor’s three boys are now grown up. But she has never forgotten the betrayal.
The 69-year-old has attended court 15 times since Razos first appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in March 2022, pleading guilty to 16 charges and misappropriating more than $1.56 million from clients of Moray and Agnew.
The case was repeatedly adjourned because Razos told the court her mental health deteriorated.
On Friday, Taylor stared intently at Razos as she appeared via a video-link from prison. Razos kept her head bowed for most of the sentencing hearing, while Taylor scrawled down the judge’s sentencing remarks in a notepad.
When the jail sentence was handed down, Razos remained stony faced, her hair pulled back in a loose bun, and eyes unflinching, as she stared straight ahead.
Loading
Kelly said there had been tragic implications for the victims of Razos’ crimes and her conduct had been “protracted, vicious and deeply exploitative”.
“I’ve waited almost 22 years for justice. I was obviously hoping for more because she’s a serial con-artist who has managed to continually manipulate the system,” Taylor, who is writing a book documenting Razos’ crimes, said outside court.
“There’s a part of her that doesn’t feel what she’s doing is wrong, and I don’t think she’ll ever change. She’d steal her grandmother’s false teeth and sell them.”
Court documents show Razos had repeatedly siphoned money from client trust accounts into her private bank accounts between 2013 and 2017, while working at Moray and Agnew’s Little Collins Street offices.
She used the proceeds to pay stamp duty of $55,000 on the purchase of a property in Box Hill South for $1 million in 2016. She then paid a construction company with stolen funds to build a luxury townhouse on the block, which later sold for $2,210,888.
In 2000, Razos also pleaded guilty to 20 theft and fraud offences she committed using the name Tina Zissiadis-Ligris, including submitting fake documents to obtain a Diners Club card, before racking up debts of $80,000.
In 2003, her first husband discovered she had forged his signature, transferring their matrimonial property to her name exclusively and depleting his superannuation fund, the court was told.
Razos was jailed for four months in 2009 after being found guilty of various fraudulent activity, which included stealing from her ex-husband and Taylor.
Kelly questioned how Moray and Agnew could have been oblivious to Razos’ extensive criminal history when they employed her. “How this was kept from them, I do not know,” he said.
The court heard Razos had acted over many years with “carefully calculated and repeated, deliberate acts of dishonesty” in what Kelly described as a wholesale breach of her employer’s trust.
Razos paid back more than $1 million before she was charged with the offending, but the court heard there had been no indication she would have stopped offending voluntarily, and her criminality had grown more ambitious over the years.
The court heard Razos’ prospects for rehabilitation were “complex” but her age and notoriety reduced her risk of reoffending.
The court was told Razos had suffered from major depressive disorder, and forensic psychologist Patrick Newton previously submitted her mental health issues lowered her moral culpability because it impeded on her ability to make clear and rational decisions. However, he said it would not have impaired her ability to comprehend the wrongfulness of her conduct.
In 2017, the Victorian Legal Services Board blocked her from working in the legal industry and released a statement that included 14 different aliases she had used, including Athena Bouzas, Zizzi Athena, Teena Zissiadis and Tina Zissiadis-Ligris. Razos was banned from being a legal practitioner in 2020.
The regulator’s chief executive and Commissioner Matthew Anstee urged law firms to perform background and police checks on the non-legal staff they hire and provide ongoing supervision.
“It is often as simple as a phone call, and results of not doing this can be catastrophic,” he said.
Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.
Source Agencies
