A Holocaust museum visit and unpaid community work are on the cards for a remorseless former television soap actor twice found guilty of performing a Nazi salute.
Damien Richardson, 57, unsuccessfully appealed against his conviction in the Victorian County Court in August after he was found guilty of the act by a magistrate in November.
Richardson had been speaking at a gathering of the ethno-nationalist National Workers Alliance at Urban St restaurant in Melbourne's southeast in September 2024.
He spoke about "western values" and complained about The Age newspaper "likening (him) to Adolf Hitler" before performing the gesture which closely resembled a Nazi salute.
The event was attended by neo-Nazis and posted on social media.
The former Neighbours actor was on Thursday re-sentenced to 100 hours of unpaid community work and he must visit the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.
Judge Kate Hawkins said Richardson knew what he did was breaking the law and his actions would be noticed because he was a "person of influence".
"(The court) must send a clear message to the community at large that the performance of a Nazi salute is offensive, harmful and against the law," she said.
The former actor was originally ordered by a magistrate to complete a "restorative justice" process, which included 10 psychological counselling sessions, shadowing a Jewish leader, penning an apology letter to the community and museum-based education.
He appealed against the guilty verdict and sentence, arguing the gesture was done for an "artistic purpose".
Judge Hawkins upheld the magistrate's ruling, saying she did not accept Richardson's action was "sarcastic or done in a humour".
But the judge said she was unable to mandate the restorative justice program on Thursday because Victorian corrections officers had limited ability to oversee his participation in the NSW-based scheme.
She said the program would "have little effect" because she did not accept Richardson would "genuinely engage with it" because he had shown no remorse.
A report delivered to the court found he continued to make statements minimising his actions and justified them by saying they were performed in jest.
"You have not demonstrated insight into the harm caused to members of the community," Judge Hawkins said.
Richardson walked out of court to claps and cheers from two dozen supporters as he maintained his Nazi salute was an act of "political satire".
"This gesture has been satired (sic) since ... the end of 1945," he told reporters.
"What I said that night was, 'don't liken me to Adolf Hitler' because that's probably the most heinous thing you could be likened to, but the reality is it was political satire."
Defence barrister James Catlin had argued his client performed the gesture sarcastically and ironically and was being wrongly smeared as a Nazi.
But prosecutor Chris Glerum said a community corrections order was appropriate because of the seriousness of the offending.
