Jye Sellings, 33, formerly of the Echuca area, pleaded guilty in Echuca Magistrates’ Court to invoicing for services not rendered to gain money from NDIS funds allocated to his client.
The court heard Sellings, who owns NDIS provider Choice, Independence, Empowerment (CIE), contacted the daughter of a Pine Grove man in his 60s who had had a stroke in November 2020, offering his services for her father.
By February 2021, the man had stopped engaging with the services offered, but Sellings continued to bill him for services until June, when the victim’s daughter noticed money was coming from his NDIS account for services he had not used.
The court was told there were 10 invoices, for a total of 48 services, amounting to $12,400.
When the victim’s daughter phoned Sellings about it, he told her he had been told by a support co-ordinator to continue attempting to engage with her father, and that he had attended her father’s address several times and he was not home, but neither she or her father knew of any times he had attended the man’s home or attempting to engage with him to provide services.
He also said that he “should have stopped things” when it became obvious that the man did not want to engage.
The victim died in January last year, but his daughter wants justice for her father.
Reading a victim impact statement to court, the victim’s daughter told how her father saw “low value” in the type of supports Sellings was offering, and did not want to engage with them.
Instead, by Sellings continuing to claim the money for the services not being rendered, the victim’s NDIS funding ran out and could not be used for things he did need help with.
The woman described what Sellings had done as “not just a breach of trust, but a calculated exploitation” and said this kind of conduct eroded trust people had in the NDIS.
Sellings’ defence counsel said her client had been working in the disability sector since 2015 and had his own business.
He said the offending was the only example of this type of offending in Sellings’s business.
When the charge was laid, Sellings’ NDIS check was suspended, and the defence counsel said over the next few months the business would cease to exist because he could not interact with clients.
The defence counsel said Sellings had had the charge hanging over his head for four-and-a-half years after having been interviewed by police in November 2021, the charge not laid until November 2025, and then the matter finalising in court in April this year.
He also said Sellings did not have any prior or subsequent criminal history, and he had “excellent” prospects of rehabilitation.
The prosecutor said Sellings’s offending was very serious.
“This offending only stopped when the victim’s daughter picked it up,” he said.
“It’s an offence not just on this victim, but against the community.”
Sellings will be sentenced later in April.
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