MELBOURNE – The families in Mildura had been waiting a long time. Some had gaping holes in their backyards where pools were never built. Others had cracked, non-compliant structures they could not safely use. What they shared, by the time Nick Stevens was finally sentenced in the Victorian County Court on Monday, was the experience of watching their retirement savings disappear into a legal proceeding that took four separate attempts to produce a verdict.
Stevens, 46, a former Carlton and Port Adelaide midfielder who spent twelve years in the AFL, was sentenced to nine months in prison followed by a two-year community corrections order. The sentence came roughly three months after a jury in his fourth trial convicted him on 12 charges of obtaining a financial advantage by deception and one charge of using a false document. He was acquitted on one charge.
The court heard that Stevens defrauded six families in the regional town of Mildura of about $158,000 through his pool business in 2017. The fraud had a specific shape: Stevens initially installed pools legally, working under the supervision of a registered builder. He then went out on his own, without the required licence, registration, permits or insurance, and took money from families while misrepresenting his qualifications. Some received pools with structural defects. Others received nothing but a hole in the ground.
“At the time you were paid money by the customers, you knew your representations that you had appropriate permits were false or probably false,” Judge Fiona Todd told Stevens at sentencing. “What you did had a corrosive effect on the goodwill and trust that does so much good in a community.”
The victims were not incidental. Many were retirees or approaching retirement, the court was told, with little financial margin and no realistic means to recover the loss. They had saved for pools their grandchildren could use. They ended up with construction debris and court dates instead.
What the sentence does not fully capture is the toll of the process itself. Stevens faced 18 charges at the outset, before charge counts were refined. His first trial in May 2025 was aborted after the judge recused themselves. A second trial collapsed in February 2026, just one day after opening arguments, over problems with evidence. A third proceeding was similarly discharged. ESPN Australia reported that prosecutors told the fourth jury Stevens had defrauded the six families of a total of $171,000 – a figure the conviction narrowed to approximately $158,000. It was only a fourth jury, finally convened in Melbourne this year, that delivered the verdict in March.
For the Mildura families, each collapsed trial meant more waiting. For the Victorian court system, it raised a question the sentence alone does not answer: why does a straightforward consumer fraud case – unlicensed contractor, six families, documented losses – require four attempts to try?
Stevens maintained his innocence throughout and pleaded not guilty to all charges. His football career was decorated: a two-time Michael Tuck Medal winner, vice-captain at Carlton, four pre-season premierships across Port Adelaide and Carlton, and 231 games across 12 seasons before a serious neck injury forced his retirement in October 2009. He subsequently went into business, operating a landscaping and pool installation company in regional Victoria.
The prosecution’s theory was that Stevens understood exactly what the legal requirements were – because he had met them when working under a licensed builder – and then chose to proceed without them when working independently. The jury accepted that framing on 12 of the 13 contested charges.
Consumer fraud in the building trades is not unusual in regional Australia. Unlicensed contractors preying on homeowners in areas with fewer options and limited oversight are a recurring feature of state consumer protection enforcement. What is less common is a former elite athlete at the centre of such a case. The intersection of professional sport and criminal jeopardy has become a recurring theme globally – from match-fixing investigations reaching club executives in European football to bribery prosecutions entangling FIFA intermediaries – but Stevens’s case is unusual in its ordinariness: no match manipulation, no financial instrument, just a suburban pool business and six families who could not afford to absorb the loss.
What is rarer still is a case that required four separate jury trials to conclude. Stevens was taken into custody after the March verdict. His sentencing on Monday – nine months imprisonment plus a two-year community corrections order – reflects both the court’s assessment of the deliberate nature of the fraud and the absence of any guilty plea or demonstrated remorse. Whether an appeal follows is not yet known. Stevens’s legal team has not made any public statement on next steps.
Judge Todd’s description of the crimes as having “a corrosive effect on the goodwill and trust that does so much good in a community” carried particular resonance in the Mildura context. The town sits in Victoria’s far north, near the New South Wales border, a regional centre where social fabric runs tighter and professional reputations travel faster than in metropolitan areas. Stevens was not just any contractor. He was a recognisable name, and that recognition, the court’s framing implied, was itself part of what made the deception effective.
How much of the $158,000 the affected families will recover – if any – the court did not specify publicly on Monday. That number, for retirees who budgeted carefully for a pool their grandchildren might swim in this summer, is unlikely to feel abstract at all.
