Aaron Salvestrin remains on bail while court proceedings continue. Photo: File.
A criminal case against a former Griffith winemaker accused of fraud is finally set to move forward, after his lawyer previously asked for a delay because the evidence presented against his client was “impossible to understand”.
Aaron Salvestrin, 31, has been charged with 16 counts of dishonestly trying to obtain a gain from a Commonwealth entity and one count of using a forged document for a public official to accept as genuine.
The Griffith man’s former wine business Sans Pareil Estate went into liquidation with alleged debts of more than $30 million in 2022. A civil court case on this matter concluded in early 2024.
A criminal case against Mr Salvestrin began in August 2025. It’s being heard before a Sydney local court and is in its early pre-trial stages.
Prosecutors assembled a brief of evidence relating to the fraud charges and gave this brief to Mr Salvestrin’s legal team late last year.
The next stage of proceedings is a case conference, where both sets of lawyers meet to discuss the charges. The Griffith man will then decide whether to plead guilty or not guilty and a magistrate will decide whether the matter goes to a higher court for a trial.
However, at a hearing in December 2025, Mr Salvestrin’s lawyer Russ Johnson said the case wasn’t ready to proceed, because the brief of evidence prosecutors gave him was impossible to understand and he didn’t have the password to open some documents.
A short procedural hearing on Friday (29 January) confirmed that these problems had been resolved.
The magistrate ruled that a case conference certificate is to be filed to the court by Tuesday (3 February). This certificate confirms that the two sets of lawyers have met, exchanged the evidence, discussed the case and decided that it’s ready to move forward.
Mr Salvestrin will remain on bail while the proceedings continue.
In August 2025 he was granted bail under the condition he report to Dee Why Police Station (in Sydney) once daily between 8 am and 8 pm.
He was also ordered to surrender any passports he held to any police officer at the Dee Why Police Area Command within 12 hours; to not apply for any passport or travel document; and to not enter any point of departure (such as an airport) in Australia.
Under his bail conditions, he is to remain within the Sydney Northern Beaches postcode 2099, but can travel to Griffith provided he notifies police of his intention to do so 24 hours in advance.
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