Guy Pound, 71, from the Isle of Man, and two quantity surveyors, Anthony Green, 76, and Peter Beard, 56, were convicted of conspiring to defraud the trustees of the charity at Winchester Crown Court. Green and Beard were each given a prison sentence of nine months, suspended for 12 months.
The men had denied all the charges.
Pound, Green and Beard had all been responsible for certifying work carried out by building contractor W Hayward & Sons, of Bournemouth. When W Hayward submitted claims for payment, these were certified despite the fact that not all the work had been done.
An example of the fraud was a road project on which claims were made for concrete overlaid with tarmac. Core samples of road drilled during a Serious Fraud Office investigation revealed that no concrete had been used.
A two-year joint investigation between the SFO and Dorset police commercial branch had centred on six contracts totalling £15m and dating from between 1985 and 1995.
Even more money, totalling about £3m was obtained through excessive fees
Serious Fraud Office statement
The work for which the trust was charged but for which it was not required to pay or had not agreed to pay was about £980,000.
According to an SFO statement, even more money, totalling about £3m, was obtained through excessive fees.
The Talbot Village Trust was set up in the late 19th century by philanthropist Georgina Talbot to ease local poverty, to help the disabled and further young people's education.
The contracts included the construction of accommodation for elderly and needy people, hostels for Bournemouth university students, and accommodation for housebuilder Cheshire Homes, all on land belonging to the trust.
The SFO statement said that confiscation proceedings against all three defendants were under way and that a hearing date had yet to be confirmed.
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