A former police officer is under fire over claims he failed to return more than $66,000 borrowed from a retired grandmother to help fund his mental health charity. The former cop says the money was a gift.
Former Victoria Police officer Tony Dowling is the founding director and chief of Y Not Try, a cause he claimed to set up to improve the wellbeing of first responders living with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Also a qualified landscaper, Dowling first shared the idea for his not-for-profit with Melbourne retiree Netta Ferlazzo whilst working on her backyard.
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Having been in the army during the Vietnam War, the concept struck a chord with the grandmother.
“I was really sold on the idea, I thought these people really need help, we don’t do enough for them, so I said, ‘What do you need’,” Ferlazzo told A Current Affair.
“I offered the financial help [and] he said, ‘That would be great’, because he couldn’t do it by himself.”
From there, Ferlazzo claims she did all the legwork for the charity, paying for lawyers to register the charity and becoming a director.
“I have paid for animals that are on the property, I have paid for his rent, I’ve paid for petrol, I have paid for legal costs, I have paid for food, for barbecues,” she said.
Dowling set up Y Not Try at a semi-rural property in Tarneit, in Melbourne’s west, offering a place members and their families could visit to “not only experience the healing power of plants but also animals, nutrition, health, fitness, rehabilitation”.
Ferlazzo claimed she loaned Dowling almost $10,000 for personal bills and paid for other items for him, including a new $450 fridge and a new mattress.
“He stopped working, he had no income, no money to pay his rent, no money to pay his bills, so I was supporting him as well,” Ferlazzo said.
“Every time I paid for something, Tony would say, ‘You’ll get it all back, you’ll get it all back’.
“In the end I said, ‘I can’t afford this anymore, Tony’ … he came around here and said, ‘I’m flat broke … I have two invoices I haven’t given you yet’.
“And I said, ‘OK … well this is going to have to be the last one’.”
The charity’s other director and Ferlazzo’s accountant, Stan Daniels, said the charity appeared “to be doing absolutely nothing”.
In June, Ferlazzo said Dowling sent her an email offering $40,000 “paid over the course of three years in equal instalments with no interest incurred”.
Ferlazzo turned down the offer, saying there wasn’t a loan agreement between them, and the money was a gift.
When Ferlazzo and Daniels stood on the doorstep of their own charity, hoping to speak to Dowling, they were ignored.
Evidently someone was home, because police turned up.
After police left, Dowling asked the A Current Affair crew to come inside without the camera.
The ex-policeman strongly denied Ferlazzo’s version of events, suggesting many of her expenses were gifts – such as clothing and alcohol.
He also suggested Ferlazzo had a crush on him and that’s why she was generous with her money.
“When you lend someone money and they say continually, ‘You are going to get the money back’, that’s not a gift,” Ferlazzo replied.
By virtue of the Y Not Try charity venture, Ferlazzo claims she has had to forfeit a planned holiday overseas and modifications she needs done to her home as she’s getting older.
“My whole life has changed because of this,” she said.
Ferlazzo can’t afford to engage lawyers but hopes to recoup her money with the help of debt collectors.
She believes Dowling played on her experiences as an army veteran to convince her to fund the charity.
“He knew how I felt about people with PTSD,” she said.
“He’s seen me cry when I’ve remembered things when I was in the army.”
Dowling agreed to speak to A Current Affair but then withdrew from the interview.