On April 5, 2002, Faure avoided
going back to jail for driving offences after a court heard he was violently
killed off in the box office hit move about Chopper Read.
Faure's character, Keithy
George, enjoyed only 10 minutes of fame before he was stabbed to death by Read.
Defence lawyer Bernie Balmer told
Melbourne Magistrates' Court his client was "upset" by the
film's treatment of his life.
Soon after seeing the movie he
hit a pole while driving without a licence in Geelong.
Mr Balmer said his client, who has a rare brain disorder, had suffered head injuries in work accidents.
"It made it difficult for
him to control his behaviour," he said.
Mr Balmer argued Faure should not go back to jail -- despite being handed a
suspended sentence for similar offences in November 2000.
At that hearing, a magistrate
heard Faure was upset during one driving offence because his brother had just
been charged with murder.
Magistrate William Martin convicted Faure of six charges, including careless and unlicensed
driving, and fined him $550.
Mr Martin jailed Faure for a
total of nine months but suspended the sentence for two years after medical
evidence.
"One could be forgiven for
thinking you went out and thought, 'To hell with the court's decision, I'm going
to do what I want to do'," he said.
"Some people have problems
readjusting to the community after they have come out of jail."
Mr Martin banned Faure, of Narre
Warren, from driving for five years.
On
August 14, 2002, the Herald Sun reported that an evil woman
masterminded the kidnapping of a wealthy Melbourne businessman in a
bizarre attempt to extort a $3 million ransom.
Toni Vodopic,
37, who manipulated family members into carrying out her scheme, also
led a secret double life.
Vodopic operated a chic Toorak Rd fashion
store and drove a Ferrari.
But she hid her past life as the former wife of Noel
Faure.
Vodopic concealed her past from her next
husband, undergoing cosmetic surgery and moving into society as an enthusiast
with the Ferrari club.
She had a controlling interest in a Toorak Rd
fashion store where Versace clothes and accessories sold for thousands of
dollars.
But the rich and famous lifestyle began falling
apart after she lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in a petrol import scheme.
Details of her ruthless plot to get out of
financial strife were revealed in the Supreme Court.
It heard that Vodopic coerced her second husband,
his elderly parents and her two daughters into taking part in her plan to kidnap
millionaire Dean Reilly.
In May 2000, Mr Reilly, 37, was lured into a
Mercedes Benz at his Mitcham workplace.
Over 30 hours he was beaten and
terrorised, in the car and then at the Glen Iris home of Toni Vodopic's
parents-in-law.
Mr Reilly failed in a desperate bid to escape
from a moving car.
But he fought off his kidnappers, who tried to
inject him with heroin and hit him with a piece of timber.
Mr Reilly was forced into signing prepared
documents authorising the transfer of $3 million to a trust account.
But his bank became suspicious after it received
the documents and refused to pay.
Prosecutor Boris Kayser said Toni Vodopic had
pleaded guilty to a crime second only to murder and urged a lengthy prison
sentence.
Mr Kayser said Vodopic was the organiser,
producer and director of a crime committed for money and nothing else.
"Ms Vodopic, in committing this crime,
demonstrated that she is a very evil person," Mr Kayser told Justice John
Coldrey.
"He (Mr Reilly) was subjected to a prolonged
sustained program of conflicting emotional stimuli . . . calculated to break his
will to resist and, indeed, it succeeded."
The prosecutor said the experience was all the
more terrifying for Mr Reilly because his kidnappers struck in broad daylight
without disguising themselves.
"At times he feared he would not survive.
The lack of disguise . . . encouraged him in that fear," Mr Kayser said.
"The circumstances indicated a degree of
daring . . . a degree of ruthlessness and confidence."
He said Vodopic deserved a significantly longer
sentence than a six-year term, with a non-parole term of three years, imposed on
her husband Joseph Vodopic.
But counsel for Vodopic, Stratton Langslow, said
her role had been much more passive than the Crown alleged.
He dismissed as self-serving exaggerations Mr
Vodopic's claims that his wife had been the mastermind.
He said the kidnappers' lack of a disguise showed
that the scheme was impulsive and hare-brained.
Mr Langslow said the trigger for the bizarre and
fantastic kidnapping caper was the loss of $700,000 to $800,000 in a petrol
importation scheme despite desperate efforts, including trips to various
countries such as Singapore, to save it.
He said Vodopic's liberal attitude to the truth
was highly likely behaviour she had adopted from childhood.
Mr Langslow said her significant personality
dysfunction was most likely a result of childhood abuse, as well as of her
10-year marriage to a man who turned out to be a significant criminal.
He said a psychiatrist had commented on Vodopic's
ability to manufacture a false reality, even being able to deceive herself.
"There is a lessened degree of culpability
because of this disability," Mr Langslow argued.
He said that while it was easy for the
prosecution to label his client as very evil, she had helped other prisoners
come to terms with life in jail.
Mr Langslow also disputed this kidnapping was a
bad example of the crime.
He said the lack of planning, the end of the
abduction after 30 hours and the delivery of Mr Reilly to a hospital, and the
lack of severe injuries inflicted showed that it was at the lower end of the
scale.
Joseph Vodopic, 35, of Burwood, was jailed the
previous April after pleading guilty to kidnapping.
His father Ivan, 71, pleaded guilty to assault
and the case was adjourned for 18 months on an undertaking he be of good
behaviour.
Jessica Regan, 19, Toni Vodopic's daughter,
pleaded guilty to making a demand with menaces and was freed on a 12-month good
behaviour bond.
Vodopic, of Church St, Burwood, has pleaded
guilty to kidnapping, making and using a false document and attempting to obtain
property by deception.
She was remanded in custody for sentencing.
On March 31, 2004,
Lewis Moran,
patriarch of the Moran crime family, was shot dead in
the early evening.
He was gunned down at his regular drinking spot, the Brunswick Club Hotel at the corner of Sydney Road and Michael
Street.
His long-time friend Herbert Wrout,
then 63, was badly
wounded.
Wrout was shot through the arm
and chest and suffered injuries to his diaphragm and spleen.
Moran was pronounced dead at the scene.
He was on bail for drug offences
at the time but refused the change his drinking habits, despite police fears
that he could be the next victim of Melbourne's gangland murders.
On May 8, 2004, the body of convicted murderer
Lewis Caine (left) was found in a Brunswick street.
He had been seen drinking in Carlton earlier that
evening with Keith Faure and Evangellos
Goussis.
Three days after Caine was
murdered, Keith Faure told the Herald
Sun that he had recently "bumped into'' Caine.
"He was a nice bloke,'' Faure said.
Keith and Noel Faure and
Goussis were
arrested in Geelong on May 23, 2004.
Members of the Special Operations Group grabbed
Keith George Faure, 53, his de facto wife, and Goussis in Geelong about 1.30pm on the orders of the Purana gangland
taskforce.
Faure and his companions were grabbed outside the
busy Bay City Plaza in the heart of Geelong by heavily armed anti-terrorist
police.
Faure, who lives in Geelong, was walking in the
area when he was grabbed.
One man who saw the arrests and asked not to be
named said he was on his lunchtime walk when he heard "a lot of
shouting".
"I heard this yelling and carrying on,"
the witness said. "I walked around the corner and there were Special
Operations Group guys everywhere."
He saw about 12 SOG officers, heavily armed and
wearing bulletproof vests, standing over two men, who were face down on the
ground in the loading dock at Bay City Plaza on Yarra Street. "The men had
their hands bound with plastic ties," the witness said.
Three unmarked four-wheel-drives and two station
wagons blocked the road and loading dock.
As some SOG officers were directing traffic away
from the scene, a carload of detectives arrived and the two were bundled into an
unmarked police car and driven away.
The witness said the incident happened around
1.25pm and lasted about 10 minutes.
Faure surrendered without a fight. "He
didn't have much option," a detective said.
He was immediately driven to Melbourne to be
interviewed by Purana detectives and questioned until late that night.
Faure and Goussis
were charged one count of murder each over the killing of Lewis
Caine.
Noel Faure, arrested in Geelong on the
same day, was charged with possessing an unregistered .22 pistol while prohibited
from having a gun.
He was sentenced to 18 months with a minimum of
nine months' jail.
Police successfully applied for a court order
to interview Noel Faure over the
murder of Lewis Moran (right) shortly before his release.
They gave evidence they reasonably suspected that
Faure was one of the gunmen in the Brunswick Club.
Evidence was given that an enhanced image from a
security video showed that one of the masked men had a tattoo on his hand
similar to Faure's
Monash University experts studied
the footage and declared it a 58 per cent match.
Since he was not wearing a
balaclava, witnesses were also able to give descriptions of the shooter,
featuring his age, body shape and eyeglasses -- enough for police to create
"face fits".
Police also were granted court permission to
interview Keith Faure, who, along with Evangelos
Goussis, was awaiting his trial
for murdering Lewis Caine.
Faure was taken from prison to the club and
participated in a police video re-enactment.
On May 13, 2005, Keith Faure, his brother Noel
Faure and Evangelos Goussis all
appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court charged with Lewis Moran's murder
and the attempted murder of Herbert Wrout.
They travelled from Barwon Prison,
to appear.
In court, Keith Faure described the charges as a "giant police
conspiracy".
He said the trio, who did not have legal representation at the hearing, had
wanted their lawyers to be there.
"We are all innocent," he said.
Keith Faure also told the court he was concerned about the state of his
brother's health.
Magistrate Paul Smith ordered the trio, who are all in custody, to appear at
the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on August 5 for a committal mention hearing.
Six months after his arrest over
the Moran shooting, Noel Faure -- who has a history of health problems --
swallowed a set of nail clippers in his prison cell.
He suffered internal
injuries.
On October 11, 2005, the trial began into the shooting of
Lewis Caine.
Before his death, according to associates, Caine's mood changed and he
questioned the loyalty of "those around him".
According to prosecutor David Parsons, SC, Caine,
Keith Faure and Evangelos ' Ange' Goussis had
shared information about the whereabouts of a member of the "Carlton
Mob".
On May 8, 2004, the three men drank at Carlton's Plough and Harrow Hotel (formerly
the Canada Hotel) and left together.
Mr Parsons said there was then a
"massive shift in allegiance".
Faure was described as a clever man with "muscle" — who
would never be mistaken for a boy scout.
A barrister for Goussis, a former member of an Australian Olympic boxing
squad, said he was an associate of four men who had been shot and killed.
"You're going to hear in this trial things that you'd normally expect to
hear on TV, and to see on TV," Mr Parsons told the jury.
"You're going to hear about clandestine meetings, you're going to hear
about shootings, you're going to hear about people who carry guns and you're
going to hear about some underworld figures that you have heard about and seen
on TV over the last couple of years."
Faure and Goussis, he said, had told police a "pack of lies" about
Caine's shooting — which Goussis later admitted he'd committed in
self-defence, when Caine
allegedly pulled a gun on him in a car after they left
the hotel.
Mr Parsons said "the bottom line is that these two men were in a joint
act of murdering".
Mr Parsons said Faure and Goussis, in the days after
Caine's death,
constructed lies that they were not at the scene, then claimed Goussis acted in
self-defence.
James Montgomery, for Faure, said Mr Parsons' opening was more suited to the
smoke and mirrors of the "Spiegeltent outside the Arts Centre".
Mr Montgomery said it defied common sense Faure would drink for two hours
with Caine in front of witnesses and then be a party to shooting him.
Remy van de Wiel, QC, for Goussis, said
Caine loved guns and that after Goussis' friend
Nik Radev and three others were killed there was a good reason
for Goussis to be armed.
On October 13, 2005, the manager of the
Plough and Harrow Hotel, former footballer David Rhys-Jones, spoke of Caine, a
patron who was once asked to leave the hotel and told not to return.
Giving evidence in the trial of Faure and
Goussis, Mr Rhys-Jones described Caine
in the Supreme
Court as intimidating, unpredictable and "very edgy".
Mr Rhys-Jones said he stayed at Crown casino on
May 8, the night Caine was shot, after attending a Carlton Football Club
function.
A hotel customer told him the next day a body
found in Brunswick was believed to be Caine's, and when Faure and
Goussis
arrived for a drink Faure asked if Caine
had been seen.
Mr Rhys-Jones said he had told Faure he'd heard
"second-hand" that it was Caine who'd been shot and that Faure seemed
a bit surprised.
When Faure returned to the hotel on May 15, 2005
Mr Rhys-Jones took him upstairs to show him the security camera system.
He said he knew Faure had been in the hotel with
Caine and had told him that "if you want to alleviate any fears I can take
you up and show you, you know … you wouldn't be seen on camera where you were
sitting anyway".
Asked by prosecutor David Parsons, SC, whose
fears he was trying to alleviate, he replied: "No, just if he didn't want
any link to the situation."
Mr Rhys-Jones said it was "probably a
mistake" to show Faure the system, but Faure wasn't fazed "one
inch".
He told Faure's counsel James Montgomery that
Faure said he did not want staff lying about his presence because "he's got
nothing to hide".
Lawyer, Zarah
Garde-Wilson (right), the former girlfriend of Lewis
Caine, was found guilty of contempt of
court in November 2005 after refusing to answer questions in the trial of
Faure and Goussis.
While refusing to give evidence, Garde-Wilson
made a failed application to enter the witness protection program.
Garde-Wilson said she had refused to give evidence
"so I don't get my head blown off" and claimed Faure had threatened
her life.
She said she was "petrified" for her
safety and could possibly lose her licence to practise as a solicitor.
The pre-trial committal hearing for three men
charged with the murder of Lewis Moran was
supposed to start at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on December 4, 2005.
One of the men, Keith Faure collapsed in the dock as the committal hearing started and
was taken to hospital by ambulance.
His lawyer, James Montgomery, told the court his
client had complained of vomiting blood and had suffered a possible stroke.
"My client has been taken away by ambulance,
(he) possibly had a stroke, we don't know yet," he said.
"He has had some signs of medical
incapacity."
Moran's widow Judy, sat silently in the front row of the public gallery of the
court as the drama unfolded.
Outside court, she said justice would be achieved
for her estranged husband despite the delay.
Anothrer of the accused, Evangelos
Goussis, was in the dock with Faure, however Noel Faure was not in court and his
lawyer told the magistrate his client was ill and in hospital.
Noel Faure suffered injuries after he slashed his
wrists and swallowed a set of nail clippers the previous week, a Barwon Prison has
spokesman said.
Magistrate Jane Patrick adjourned the committal
hearing for April 2006 after the prosecution and other parties agreed to
the adjournment.
Drug
lord Tony Mokbel (left), who fled Australia during his
trial, was sentenced in his absence to
12 years' jail on March 31, 2006, for cocaine smuggling and has other state and
federal drug charges to face.
Victoria's Purana gangland
killing taskforce has indicated it is ready to charge him with at least one
murder, and that he is a suspect in others.
Keith Faure had told police Mokbel
offered him and two
others $150,000 to murder underworld patriarch Lewis
Moran.
Another crime figure has
implicated Mokbel as the financier in a second
underworld killing, for which Mokbel was allegedly
happy to pay $300,000.
On April 26, 2006, the Age reported that a
senior underworld figure wanted to cut a deal with police to give evidence
against the alleged main players in Melbourne's gangland war.
The man, a career criminal whose family has
influenced Melbourne crime for more than 70 years, has a deep knowledge of the
gangland factions and is alleged to have worked for both sides as a freelance
gunman.
Prison sources said the man, who had spent
decades in and out of jail, was "broken" after spending months in
solitary confinement.
The potential witness has been responsible for or
involved in the violent deaths of at least five people and the non-fatal
shootings of two more.
He would be the third major player in the
gangland war who has decided to confess, smashing the traditional underworld
code of silence.
The man has previously refused to co-operate with
police, but it is believed he now wants to cut a deal where he will be given a
minimum sentence for his crimes rather than an indefinite jail term.
"He doesn't want to die in jail," a
police source said.
But the man, now aged in his 50s, might have to
be satisfied with improved jail conditions rather than ultimate freedom.
A notorious jailhouse lawyer, the man has
previously manipulated subordinate criminals to confess to protect him from
murder charges.
His family was heavily involved with criminal
elements in the former Painters and Dockers Union that lived by the code:
"We catch and kill our own."
While most of the main players in the war
remained loyal to one side, the new witness was a gun for hire who is alleged to
have worked for both gangland factions.
His family have had a major influence in
Victorian crime since the 1920s and his grandfather was shot in Sydney during a
cocaine war.
The man, whose own criminal career spans at least
40 years, was first charged with an offence when he was 11.
He claims he was eight when he saw his first
gangland murder.
On May 3, 2006, Keith Faure was sentenced to a minimum of 19 years in jail in the Supreme Court for the
Lewis Moran hit and the murder of a rival underworld gunman
Lewis Caine six weeks later.
Justice Bernard Teague said
missing underworld figure Tony Mokbel was one of
two men who agreed to pay $150,000 for the execution of Lewis Moran.
Faure
claimed Mokbel paid the trio $140,000 several days after the shooting, $10,000
less than the agreed amount.
Justice Teague fixed a 19-year
minimum jail term for Keith Faure, who pleaded guilty to murdering Moran.
Appearing in court via videolink
from a remote location, Faure was sentenced for the Moran
killing and the separate murder of Lewis Caine.
Justice Teague jailed Faure, of
Norlane, for life for Moran's murder and 24
years for the murder of Caine.
He said in imposing the 19-year
minimum that Faure agreed to give prosecution evidence and co-operate with
authorities over the murder of Lewis Moran.
Faure had agreed to cooperate
with authorities and had made an extensive statement about his role in the
murder of Lewis Moran.
He had also promised to help
police in their investigation of another case.
On the night of the Moran
killing, Faure took three firearms and two balaclavas as he drove the two gunmen
to a location close to the club.
After the shootings, he drove
them away.
Justice Teague said the Moran
murder was a callous, planned, premeditated execution for money.
"To some people, life is not
sacred, as it should be. To some people, life is cheap," he said.
Outside court, Lewis Moran's
widow, Judith Moran, told reporters she was "shattered".
In a separate hearing, Justice
Teague sentenced former boxer Evangelos Goussis,
38, to 20 years' jail, with a 15-year minimum, for the murder of Lewis
Caine.
Goussis was also
found guilty of the murder when he faced court the previous November.
He said Goussis
had said he fired the shot that killed Caine, who
appeared to have been fired at when he was sitting in the back seat of a
four-wheel drive vehicle.
Justice Teague said Goussis
and Keith Faure had been drinking with Caine at a
Carlton hotel shortly before the shooting.
He said all three men had close
contacts within rival camps that were seen to be engaged in retributive
killings.
Another brother, John Faure,
who had his serious brush with the law in the 1970s, helping to hold up a
bank "on the spur of the moment'' and learned a hard lesson.
He said after that, it was an easy choice of an ordinary life over a notorious
one.
John Faure, who is a union official, says Keith's choices weren't to their
father's taste.
"Keith makes his own rules and does his thing,'' John said. "The jail
system brought Keith up, not our father.
"He was still his son, though.''
John Faure said he hadn't seen eye to eye with his brother for years, and hasn't
spoken to him since the gangland war erupted in the late 1990s.
After Keith Faure vowed to give evidence against
others before he earned a minimum 19-year jail term for his part in killing Lewis Moran and Lewis
Caine, John Faure said,
"It's better than doing 60 years.''
Faced with the choice of decades under a harsh prison regime, or something
better if he "nodded his head'' and admitted guilt, John said his brother chose
wisely.
"They put you in there and leave you to rot. They are all nodding their
heads.''
On February 26, 2007, Noel
Faure admitted that he pulled the trigger on Lewis
Moran.
He is the second man to plead guilty
over the 2004 shooting at the Brunswick Club, which is alleged to have been
ordered by fugitive drug baron Tony Mokbel for a $150,000 fee.
Faure had denied involvement in
the gangland hit since he was named as a suspect in February 2005.
He
appeared in Melbourne Magistrates' Court by video link from Barwon Prison to
plead guilty to murdering Moran and intentionally causing serious injury to his
drinking companion Herbert Wrout after the prosecution withdrew charges of attempted murder.
Evangelos
Goussis, who is accused of being the
second gunman, will appear at a committal hearing on March 22 when he will
contest the charges laid against him.
Magistrate Jane Patrick remanded
Faure in custody to face the Supreme Court in March.
On
March
27, 2007, Magistrate Jane
Patrick released an image from a
hotel's closed circuit television system after she committed Evangelos
"Ange" Goussis to stand trial on a charge of murdering Lewis Moran.
The
image, recorded at the Brunswick Club Hotel
at around 6.30pm on March 31, 2004, shows Moran's
drinking companion Bertie Wrout slumped against a bar while a gunman in the bottom left-hand corner aims a
pistol at Moran's long-time friend.
What the image does not show is Moran being
chased by another armed man before he was shot twice.
A badly wounded Wrout survived being shot in the chest and arm while Moran died
at the scene.
A witness, known only as "C" said in a statement that Goussis shot Moran and that
another man, who is now terminally ill, shot Wrout.
Goussis, one of five gangland figures to have been
charged over the shooting, pleaded not guilty to murdering Moran and was discharged
on a count of attempting to murder Wrout.
He remains in custody and was ordered to appear
again in the Supreme Court in July for a directions hearing.
Witness C, who cannot be identified for legal
reasons, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court via video-link during Goussis'
two-day committal hearing.
The witness told the court that "bad blood" between he and Lewis Moran had
contributed to the killing.
He said that he phoned Moran to ask "if he
had a problem with me" before being told to "fuck off" and that
after the brief conversation his mind was made up and he decided to accept a
contract to kill him.
The contract had been offered by fugitive drug
baron Tony Mokbel and underworld serial murderer Carl
Williams.
Mokbel wanted Moran dead because the crime group
known as the 'Carlton Crew', of which Moran was a member, had bashed him in late
2002, witness C said in his police statement.
Stephen Sherrifs SC, for Goussis, called witness
C a liar who had given several versions of his story to police.
When Mr Sherrifs asked the witness to recall the
events leading up to the execution of Moran he said that he had spoken to Carl
Williams who phoned him shortly before the shooting of Williams' right hand
man Andrew Veniamin on March 3, 2004.
Witness C said that a
meeting then took place between himself, Williams, Mokbel and Goussis in the car
park of Bridie O'Reilly's Hotel in Brunswick .
He said Williams asked him if he knew anyone
interested in killing Moran and that the hit was worth $150,000.
Witness C said that Williams had asked him if
there was any friction between he and the 'Carlton Crew'.
He said that he told Williams he had been dirty
on some members of the crime group particularly Lewis Moran but especially Jason
Moran.
Witness C said he felt this way as a result of
the 1998 murder of Lygon St crime boss and Carlton Crew leader, Alphonse
Gangitano for which many believed Jason Moran to have been responsible.
Jason Moran was shot dead in Essendon in June
2003.
Witness C also said that he had been told that
members of the Carlton Crew had put out a contract on his life and he had
decided to phone Lewis Moran for some verification.
He said that Moran was less than forthcoming and
launched into an expletive laden verbal tirade.
Witness C also told police that standover man Nik
"The Russian" Radev had accepted a contract to kill Carlton Crew
boss Mick Gatto.
However, Radev was shot dead before he could
carry it out.
Witness C said in a statement that Mr Gatto had
taken offence that he didn't inform him sooner of a rumour that Radev, who was
killed in April 2003, had agreed to kill the former boxer.
"Because of this situation I was deemed to
be an enemy of Mick and his friends. In my heart I was never his enemy,"
the hired killer said.
He said that he requested another meeting with
Williams shortly after Andrew Veniamin was murdered because he was worried that
there would be surveillance on underworld identities and that the contract may
have been jeopardised.
Witness C said
he and Goussis then met Carl Williams and Tony Mokbel
at the Grove Cafe in Brunswick where they were assured that it was safe to go
ahead with the murder.
On March 31, 2004, the day of Moran's murder,
witness C said Goussis had called into his house in a an outlying town during
the morning and then driven to Melbourne with a bag containing guns and
balaclavas.
The witness said that he and another man left for
Melbourne at about 3.30pm and met Goussis at the London Hotel in Brunswick
shortly after 5.00pm.
After a short while witness C said that Goussis
left the bar and drove past the nearby Brunswick Club to confirm that Lewis
Moran was there.
Fifteen
minutes later he allegedly returned to the London Hotel to tell the two others
he had seen Moran and that their plan could be put into action.
According to witness C the men then did a 'dummy
run' up Sydney Road in separate cars before finding a suitable location to park
one of the vehicles and transfer into a maroon Ford.
They then drove up Sydney Road, turned at the
Brunswick Club into Michael St and observed Lewis Moran drinking at the hotel's
bar.
Witness C said that he waited with the getaway
car in a laneway at the rear of the hotel.
He said that Goussis and another man then took 90
seconds to enter the hotel's front bar, kill Moran and badly wound Wrout before
retreating to the laneway and being driven away.
Witness C said that a
week after Moran's death, Williams rang and told him: "Good one, mate. You
have 150,000 reasons to smile."
He later met Mokbel and was handed $140,000 in an
envelope from the boot of the millionaire's car and told there was "more
business there if you want it".
The missing $10,000 was never paid.
Witness C said that he had seen Williams only
once since Moran's murder when he and Goussis "bumped into him" at a
hotel near the Magistrates' Court after witness C had appeared there to face
charges relating to driving offences.
On July 14, 2007, a top criminal lawyer acting
for Tony Mokbel was thrown out of a
maximum-security jail.
Alastair Grigor had been at Barwon Prison to talk to at least three
underworld identities, among them Carl Williams,
when he was ejected.
All are believed to be known to Mokbel and have been accused over the
shooting of Lewis Moran.
Victorian police want Mokbel extradited from Greece to face trial for the
killing of Moran, as well as that of drug dealer Michael
Marshall.
Mokbel is expected to mount a long and expensive fight to serve his time in
Greece.
Mr Grigor is believed to have spoken to Williams, the drug kingpin convicted
of organising Moran's killing.
It is believed he also wanted to speak to two other men, one convicted over,
and another awaiting trial for, the Brunswick Club killing.
It is unclear why Mr Grigor wanted to speak to the men during the visit.
Mr Grigor, who operates Grigor Lawyers, was allowed into the prison after
showing his credentials but suspicious corrections staff moved in and started
asking questions soon after he spoke to Williams.
It then became clear none of the men he wanted time with was a client and he
was told to leave immediately.
Mr Grigor is a well-known member of Melbourne's legal community, having
appeared in underworld murder cases and at the Australian Wheat Board inquiry.
He also worked for Zdravko Micevic, the bouncer acquitted of the manslaughter
of cricket figure David Hookes outside a Port Melbourne hotel.
A Corrections Victoria spokeswoman said she could not comment on prisoner
visits or security issues.
Mr Grigor did not return calls from the Herald Sun.
The
Faure family
Faure was
present when