Jury hung majority of charges against Guy Sebastian's former manager Titus Day

Australia Broadcast Center

5 days ago

The embezzlement trial of Guy Sebastian's former manager has ended in a jury acquitting Titus Day of four charges but remaining hung on the majority of allegations that he misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars in performance fees.
The 52-year-old pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of embezzlement as a clerk or servant and one count of obtaining a financial advantage by deception.
The NSW District Court heard allegations Mr Day embezzled $620,000 from the popular singer between 2013 and 2020.
His defence team argued the Crown had failed to disprove whether any misapplication of funds was not deliberate but rather a mistake.
The jury had been deliberating for more than a week when it returned unanimous not guilty verdicts on four embezzlement charges on Tuesday.
Those four charges accounted for about $114,000.
In a note to Judge Alister Abadee, the jurors said they felt that further deliberations would be "wasting the court's valuable time".
The judge urged them to continue deliberating, with the option of returning majority 11-1 verdicts if unanimous decisions were not possible.
On Wednesday the panel sent another note indicating they remained deadlocked, and the foreperson confirmed they would not reach either unanimous or majority decisions.
Judge Abadee discharged the panel, thanking them for their service.
During the trial, jurors were told Mr Day was being paid "very well", with the singer giving evidence he was paying about half a million dollars a year to a company called 6 Degrees for Mr Day's management.
Mr Sebastian signed on when Mr Day decided to start his own agency, as a "marquee client" that could almost guarantee income.
Crown Prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC said it was clear 6 Degrees was "not run well" and ended up going broke.
He urged jurors to "not lose sight of the big picture" when considering the individual charges, arguing that the accused "knew that what he was doing was fraudulently misappropriating the money".
"In each instance, in relation to each count, there was a clear failure and circumstances of dishonesty to render the activity fraudulent," Mr Hatfield said in his closing address.
The allegations have also been at the centre of civil proceedings between the two men.
Defence counsel Thomas Woods said the entire prosecution was "misconceived" and questioned why police didn't leave the two men to "battle it out in the Federal Court".
The barrister said whenever Mr Day held onto money that came into the 6 Degrees account, it was because he believed he was entitled to do so.
In a closing address, Mr Woods said jurors should consider the evidence through the lens that his client was running a lawful and legitimate business.
"He wasn't some kind of crime boss who was intent on the ruthless exploitation of innocent people. He was not and is not some Ned Kelly-type of person."
Mr Woods said a charge of fraud could not be made out by showing that a business was run in a "sloppy way" or that a person was "careless or even negligent".
"You might think that this is an unfortunate case involving a dramatic falling out between friends and the breakdown of a previously mutually successful business relationship," he said.
"You might think that both parties to this dispute sincerely believe that they are in the right."
The civil case was put on hold until the end of the criminal proceedings.
This was the second time Mr Day faced trial over embezzlement allegations.
A previous jury found him guilty of 35 charges and cleared him of 13 others, but the convictions were quashed on appeal and a retrial was ordered.
The case will now return to court for a mention and the DPP will need to decide whether the matter will go to another retrial.
Mr Day remains on bail.