Home sweet prison for tax cheat Wheatley

A man's home may be his castle, but for disgraced former music industry entrepreneur Glenn Wheatley, it will now be his prison.

After 10 months in jail for tax evasion, Wheatley, one of Australia's best-known entertainment identities, returned to Melbourne on Monday to serve out the remaining five months of his 15-month sentence in home detention.

The former rock manager and rock musician was picked up from Beechworth Prison, in Victoria's north-east, in a black four-wheel drive at about 5am (AEST) on Monday.

He had spent 10 months in the medium-security prison and marked his 60th birthday there in January.

He will now spend five further months in home detention in his Spanish-style mansion in South Yarra.

The mansion, complete with huge palm trees and surrounded by a tall, salmon-coloured rendered fence, will serve as both a refuge and prison for Wheatley.

With three media helicopters buzzing overhead and a swarm of media trailing his trip home, Wheatley and his entourage hit Melbourne's peak hour traffic about 8am (AEST).

Driving through the streets of Carlton at a crawl, they first stopped at a Department of Justice building in inner-city Abbotsford, where Wheatley is believed to have had his security anklet attached.

Wheatley's entourage then completed the final stretch home to South Yarra, cruising straight past a huge media throng and pack of curious onlookers camped outside the mansion.

Partially concealed behind the tinted windows of his black Jeep Cherokee, Wheatley swept through the gates of his mansion at about 9.20am (AEST).

Wheatley's wife Gaynor said her husband was glad to be home.

"He hugged the girls like nothing," she told a large pack of reporters outside their home.

When asked if he had asked for anything special for dinner, she smiled and replied: "Roast lemon chicken."

Ms Wheatley said he would be able to resume working.

"He can work. I think we'll be taking a lot of meetings at home. He won't be out and about," she said.

She said he could request to go out.

Wheatley was sentenced in the Victorian County Court to a minimum of 15 months' jail last July.

He had dodged paying $318,092 in tax, hiding money in Swiss accounts and creating bogus off-shore transactions to conceal his income.

The man who once managed Australian pop stars John Farnham and Delta Goodrem pleaded guilty to one count each of defrauding the Commonwealth, failing to aid to the utmost of his power in the administration of property and his affairs contrary to the Bankruptcy Act, and dishonestly obtaining gain.

In April this year, Victoria's Adult Parole Board found he was suitable for conditional release into home detention, imposing 24 conditions on him, including the wearing of an electronic security ankle tag.

Wheatley was the first person jailed as part of the ongoing $300 million Operation Wickenby, the nation's largest white-collar criminal investigation, launched by the Australian Crime Commission and the Australian Taxation Office.

ninemsn 19 May 2008

That's the amount that he got caught for. Jail? Where Jail? He is spending his remainder in the opulence of his house, still able to conduct business. One must also look at the other side of the coin, and look whether those monies where rightly due?