{"id":12817,"date":"2022-11-09T16:09:35","date_gmt":"2022-11-09T16:09:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/?p=12817"},"modified":"2022-11-09T16:09:35","modified_gmt":"2022-11-09T16:09:35","slug":"australian-doctor-jailed-for-scamming-patients-to-fund-gambling-addiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/australian-doctor-jailed-for-scamming-patients-to-fund-gambling-addiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Doc Jailed for Scamming Patients to Fund Gambling Addiction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/county-court-of-victoria-australia.jpg\" alt=\"County Court of Victoria, Australia\" width=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-12818\" \/><strong>Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dr. Stephanson admitted to defrauding his patients of $800,000 to support his gambling habit<\/li>\n<li>Stephanson obtained the money using the guise of his father&#8217;s cancer diagnosis<\/li>\n<li>The former doctor was sentenced to three years in jail for the crime<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A doctor from Portland, Victoria <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/au\">Australia<\/a> has been jailed for scamming patients out of hundreds of thousands to fuel his gambling habit. <strong>Abraham Stephanson<\/strong>, a former doctor at Seaport Medical Centre, appeared before the County Court of Victoria on November 8, where he was sentenced to three years in prison with a non-parole period of 18 months. <\/p>\n<h2>Doctor Scammed His Patients Out of More Than $800K<\/h2>\n<p>The 50-year-old was <strong>able to loan more than $800,000 from his victims<\/strong> after telling them &#8220;<em>he needed the money for his father&#8217;s cancer treatment<\/em>&#8220;. But rather than using the funds to help his father, the doctor spent most of it to support his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/news\/australians-are-worlds-worst-gamblers-on-sports-betting\/\">online gambling addiction like so many Australians do<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>The crime happened between 2019 and 2020, with Stephanson obtaining money from 18 patients and a pharmacy employee. The amounts ranged from $5,000 to $120,000. Before his arrest, Stephanson returned $190,418 of the money he owed, but as of August 2022, the doctor has yet to repay the remaining $620,000, a portion of that he had loaned from an individual who died just this year. <\/p>\n<p>During his trial in July, <strong>Stephanson pleaded guilty to scamming his victims<\/strong>, most of whom were his long-time patients aged in their 80s. The court was told Stephanson would ask his victims via email and texts to lend him money to help with his father&#8217;s cancer treatment. In some of the messages, the doctor would say the treatment would take place in China, while in others, he&#8217;d say it would be in Israel or the U.S. <\/p>\n<h2>Victims Felt &#8220;Betrayed&#8221;<\/h2>\n<p>The victims were persuaded to accept loan agreements without any details as to how Stephanson would repay the money. After receiving the funds, the doctor would then use them to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.legitgambling.com\/au\/legal-australian-online-betting-sites\">gamble at a sports betting website<\/a>. A portion of the money also went to his mortgage. <\/p>\n<p>The victims, some of whom gave Stephanson their life savings or superannuation, said they felt &#8220;<em>betrayed<\/em>, &#8220;<em>violated<\/em>&#8221; and &#8220;<em>angry<\/em>&#8221; about what the doctor did to them, adding that they are now dealing with trust issues as a result.<\/p>\n<p>In his ruling, <strong>Judge George Georgiou<\/strong> said Stephanson&#8217;s actions were a &#8220;<em>gross breach of trust<\/em>&#8221; which have had a profound impact on each of his victims. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Summary Dr. Stephanson admitted to defrauding his patients of $800,000 to support his gambling habit Stephanson obtained the money using the guise of his father&#8217;s cancer diagnosis The former doctor was sentenced to three years in jail for the crime A doctor from Portland, Victoria Australia has been jailed for scamming patients out of hundreds [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,2,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-legislation","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Australian Doc Jailed for Scamming Patients to Fund Gambling Addiction<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A doctor from Portland, Victoria Australia has been jailed for scamming patients out of hundreds of thousands to fuel his gambling habit.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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