Curtis, a father of two and husband of Sydney publicist Roxy Jacenko, was released on bail pending Justice Lucy McCallum's decision on sentence, which will be handed down next Friday. Roxy Jacenko with Oliver Curtis during his trial. Credit:Anna Kucera He faces the prospect of up to five years in prison, a $220,000 fine, or both. At a sentencing hearing on Friday, Crown prosecutor David Staehli, SC, urged Justice McCallum to impose a full-time jail sentence to reflect the seriousness of the offence and serve as a general deterrence in the community. He said 18 months could be used as "more than a touchstone". On Mr Staehli's calculations, the sentence would approach 24 months if a discount Mr Hartman received for cooperating with authorities was removed.

But Curtis' barrister, Murugan Thangaraj, SC, said it was "not the case that it has to be full-time imprisonment", prompting Justice McCallum to question if he would make the same submission if Curtis had been convicted of stealing the money. Oliver Curtis leaves his sentencing hearing at the Supreme Court on Friday. Credit:Anna Kucera The court heard Curtis has already consented to forfeiting the $1.43 million profit to the Commonwealth, even though Mr Hartman received "substantial sums" from that amount. Mr Thangaraj said Mr Hartman was allowed to keep assets that authorities acknowledged were the proceeds of crime and "now we're paying for it". Curtis had already been punished outside the court process, he told the court, and would find it hard to obtain work outside his network of family and friends.

"There isn't a person in Sydney who would want to live through what Mr Curtis and his family have lived through since 2009," Mr Thangaraj said. Curtis' father Nick, the former chairman of rare earth miner Lynas Corporation, "will always stand by him, as one would expect" and had given him a job after the insider trading charges emerged. But Mr Thangaraj said a "typical young adult" would want to achieve success independently. Curtis and Mr Hartman spent the proceeds of their illegal deal on lavish expenses including a $3000-a-week Bondi apartment, a $60,000 Mini Cooper, a $20,000 Ducati motorbike and a luxury holiday to Whistler and Las Vegas. The trial pitted former school friends against each other as Mr Hartman, the son of wealthy Sydney obstetrician Keith Hartman, appeared as the prosecution's star witness.

Mr Hartman has already served 15 months behind bars for a string of insider trading offences, most of which were unrelated to the deal he struck with Curtis in 2007 to use inside information Mr Hartman acquired in the course of his job as an equities dealer to bet on shifts in share prices. His sentence was reduced after he agreed to give evidence against Curtis. In support of a non-custodial sentence, Mr Thangaraj pointed to Curtis' changed circumstances since the time of the alleged offences. He was now a husband and a father of a four-year-old daughter and two-year-old son. The defence also called two character witnesses, including Curtis' godfather and businessman Antony Magnus who said the prospect of Curtis reoffending was "zero". "He was very much a boy's boy," he said of the young Curtis. "He met Roxy, fell in love [and had two children] before most of the boys in his year had even dated the same girl twice."

He said Curtis had continued to be a "doting dad" and husband although the case had taken an emotional toll. Mr Staehli, for the Crown, pointed to Curtis' culpability in support of a jail sentence. He noted Curtis "obviously pleaded not guilty, as is his right". However, it meant there was no evidence of contrition, remorse or cooperation with authorities, except that the trial proceeded in a way that was "relatively smooth".