Russell William Tracy BIDDLE

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

Russell William Tracy Biddle was convicted on guilty plea of 10 counts of dishonest application of trust property, having misappropriated $1,821,230.59 from the Dawson and Goffin estates over 19 months while acting as executor and attorney. He received a 7.5 year prison sentence. QCAT found his conduct constituted professional misconduct involving dishonesty and gross breach of trust, determined he was not a fit and proper person, and ordered his name removed from the local roll plus payment of the Commissioner's costs on the standard Supreme Court scale.

Duties found breached:

• Proper basis for allegations
• No conflict between current clients
• No improper use of client money
• No baseless or threatened misconduct report

Aggravating factors:

• Total amount misappropriated $1,821,230.59 over 19 months
• Grossly abused trust as solicitor, executor and attorney
• Only $172,114.73 repaid by respondent
• Loss to Fidelity Fund of $958,248.62 and real losses to estates
• Untruthful and dishonest with clients; showed falsified trust ledger entries labelled 'investment'
• Money used for ATO debt and personal/business expenses

Mitigating factors:

• Guilty plea in criminal proceedings
• Did not oppose findings of professional misconduct or removal from roll