Neva Liana Lozzi faces up to ten years in jail after being found guilty of embezzling more than $780,000 from ‘Porn King’, Con Ange.
There’s more going on in adult shops than you think.
45-year-old Neva Liana Lozzi, was found guilty of “29 counts of dishonesty obtaining financial advantage by deception” in Downing Centre Local Court this week after stealing from Sydney’s ‘Porn king’.
Specifically, Lozzi was found guilty of embezzling $787,571 via bank transfers made “between 2016 and … early 2020” from her former boss.
When pleading her innocence, Lozzi firmly stated that Ange gave her permission to carry out the transactions because they were covered under her remuneration package.
In other words, Lozzi’s defence was built on the fact that she and Ange agreed that, as an employee of his, that she was entitled to financial benefits/compensation.
The transactions were used to cover $3700 in rent, energy/phone bills, “travel and accommodation expenses,” superannuation and payments to personal bank accounts.
Furthermore, Lozzi claimed before the court that her official job title under Ange was “financial controller,” before being promoted to “‘chief financial controller’ of the Ange Group”.
The Ange Group refers to “the various companies” which support Ange’s chain of adult entertainment shops. These shops can be found across multiple states, including Victoria, Queensland and NSW.
Former sex shop employee, Neva Lozzi, has been convicted of fleecing almost $800,000 from one of Sydney’s most colourful and controversial characters. Con Ange says he was the one conned. While he was being treated for a terminal illness. https://t.co/h7foyRGFXb #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/Djdetofz09
— 7NEWS Canberra (@7NewsCanberra) May 28, 2021
While Lozzi used her employment status and her six-figure salary as the main means of her defence, Ange rebuked her claims, claiming that his former employee “took advantage of his absence” which came as a result of being attacked when his office was “fire-bombed” in 2016.
Additionally, Ange claims that Lozzi also used “his diagnosis of motor neuron[e] disease” as another reason for embezzling him.
He also argued that her job only required administrative duties, and that her employment with him was only “on a permanent part-time basis”.
This is not the first time that Lozzi and the porn tycoon have butted heads in court.
Earlier this year, both parties went before a judge to plead their cases on the aforementioned issues.
However, back then, Lozzi went on record to state that Ange would only pay his employees in cash “so he could avoid paying employee entitlements”.
In Lozzi’s argument, she claimed that Ange threatened violence against her son “if she did not return the tax component of her salary” after her employment was terminated.
What a criminal that #NevaLozzi is. 10 years jail is not enough#NevaLianaLozzi#smh #fraud #conangehttps://t.co/oL47sn9SCV
— Go Australia (@CompetitiveAust) May 28, 2021
In the end, Magistrate Brett Shields sided with Ange on the basis that his evidence was undeniably truthful.
While Magistrate Shields acknowledged that the employment arrangement between Lozzi and Ange was “‘highly irregular’ and probably contravened employment law”, there was ultimately “no commercial benefit” to it.
“The only consequence of such an arrangement is that a legal and legitimate cost to the business is converted to an illegal … cost,” Magistrate Shields said.
The case between Lozzi and Agne will conclude with sentencing in July of this year.
