Sam Casella was the director of many companies that acted as fronts for the actual owner (referred to in business law as a 'Straw Director') and as such, when you are a straw director you obviously don't care about the company or the accountability so you have sub-par standards. Well, because of that Sam Casella has been banned by ASIC from having anything to do with corporations and was fined by the District Court in the matter of SafeWork NSW v Casella [2023] NSWDC 503 (finalised 20 November 2023 before Judge Scotting). The defence was represented by Barrister Paul Bolster. The prosecution was represented by Barrister Anders Mykkeltvedt.
There really isn't anything of substance in this case, just a typical case of a negligent officer of a company not putting basic safety things in place and a worker paying the price. What is relevant is that the judge actually refused to give him a more mitigated sentence under s 21A(3)(h) citing that Mr Casella was a 'stooge' and failed to explain how he was even involved in this company.
The offender plead guilty and was given mostly standard mitigating factors (however, as stated above, the prospects of rehabilitation was not given as no accountability or real co-operation with the court was demonstrated). He attempted to say in court that as the director of a large company (Quattro) that has an annual turnover of $3,200,000 he was on $38,000/year (about $19/hour). This was obviously not believed by the Judge and the offender was asked for documents to prove finances which were not tendered so no reduced capacity to pay was considered.
The offender is now a convicted criminal and will remain one until at least November 2033. The one lesson there for workers and directors is failing to meet your WHS duties is actually a criminal offence and it will go on your record just like a drink driving, assault or theft offence would.
If you don't want to be explaining to future employers why you have convictions on your record (especially when a s 32 conviction has wording "expose worker to serious injury or death"), don't fail to meet your duties.