JANUARY 2007 MARCH 2007 APRIL 2007 MAY 2007 JUNE 2007 JULY 2007
AUGUST 2007 SEPTEMBER 2007 OCTOBER 2007 NOVEMBER 2007 DECEMBER 2007

February 1, 2007
Man caught with pistol in court

Dr Jerry Gelb, 49, of Armadale was caught with a pistol as he entered the Magistrates' Court.

Dr Gelb, a psychiatrist, attended court with his wife and their hired security officer David Karl Schmack, 40, to apply for an intervention order against his former partner.

Security officers found the loaded .22 calibre pistol and 49 bullets in Dr Gelb's backpack as it passed through an X-ray.

Dr Gelb feared his ex-wife had taken a contract out on the lives of him and his new wife, a court heard the next day.

Dr Gelb and his wife Kerrie, 35, heavily fortified their Armadale home after continued threats were allegedly made to them.

Melbourne Magistrates' Court heard the security measures included surveillance and infra-red cameras, multiple locks on every door and bright lighting to stop people seeing in through windows.

The Gelbs installed surveillance cameras in many rooms.

They were scoping for the underworld hitman the couple believed Dr Gelb's ex-wife Sharon Guy was allegedly sending to kill them.

The court heard that Dr Gelb acquired the pistol for their protection from an unnamed but well-known criminal.

Television news services later reported that the criminal was Tolli Spilliopolis.

February 2, 2007
Renate Mokbel court bid fails

The sister-in-law of missing drug boss Tony Mokbel, Renate Mokbel, 35, failed in a bid to delay a court order that she said would force her imprisonment within a month if she failed to pay the surety, which became due when her brother-in-law fled at the end of a drug trial.

Justice Geoffrey Nettle and Justice Murray Kellam dismissed Mrs Mokbel's application to stay the payment pending her appeal against its enforcement. Justice Nettle said she could reapply for a delay, but she and her husband, Milad Mokbel, needed to provide more details about her situation.

He said in the Court of Appeal that Mrs Mokbel's lawyers had produced an affidavit saying her $1.14 million family home was the only means by which she could raise the surety.

But the home was owned by a family trust controlled by Milad Mokbel, and was subject to a separate court order.

Mrs Mokbel is appealing against a Supreme Court decision that she was not a genuine surety for Tony Mokbel, who has not been seen since skipping bail in March last year while accused over the importation of two kilograms of pure cocaine.

February 6, 2007
Houssam Zayat's brother murdered

The brother of murdered underworld figure Housam 'Sam' Zayat was found dead today in his Noble Park home shortly before 7am.

Haysam Zayat, 37, who had several drug convictions, was found on his bed with multiple stab wounds.

Zayat was stabbed in the upper body and was dead when paramedics arrived at his home .

Zayat's Templewood Avenue neighbours heard an argument and then a car driving away.

Housam Zayat was shot dead in Tarneit in September 2003.

Another brother, Mohammed was found hanged in Port Phillip Prison in April 1999.

February 6, 2007
Gelb refused bail

In a case he described as "totally bizarre", Magistrate Peter Reardon found Jerry Gelb posed an unacceptable risk of committing further offences after police expressed fears for the safety of the public.

Dr Jerry Gelb, 49, of Armadale was caught with a pistol as he entered the Magistrates' Court on Thursday February 1.

Mr Reardon said Dr Gelb's explanations for having the .22 handgun at Melbourne Magistrates Court were implausible.

In refusing bail, Mr Reardon compared Dr Gelb's case to the daytime television soap operas The Bold and The Beautiful and Days of Our Lives.

Mr Reardon remanded Dr Gelb, who is charged with possessing a firearm on court premises and various weapons offences, in custody for a committal mention hearing in April.

February 7, 2007
Portraits from Kill City

When reporter Darren Lunny decided to stage an exhibition of photographs of key figures in Melbourne's infamous underworld wars he faced two problems.

The first was whether or not his subjects would remain alive long enough to pose for the camera.

The second was uncertainty over dealing with formidable characters including matriarch Kath Pettingill and Bill "The Texan" Longley.

The exhibition, Kill City - The Players, ran from February 7 to 20 at the Arena Contemporary Art Space in Fitzroy.

"They were dropping like flies when the war was on," Mr Lunney said.

"I would wake up in the mornings wondering whether a bloke I wanted to photograph had become the latest victim."

His worries over approaching underworld identities was largely unfounded.

"For the most part they were fine to deal with once I had their trust," he said.

Click here for more of Lunny's photographs

Horty Mokbel arrested - Wife bail change bid fails
February 7, 2007

Just hours after he supported his wife Zaharoula Mokbel in court, Horty Mokbel, 43, was arrested in Sydney Road, Coburg at 8.35pm.

Police later executed a search warrant and raided his house in Rene Street, Preston, but nothing was seized.

Police then took him away for questioning over illicit drug manufacturing and trafficking, a police spokeswoman said.

He was released without charge.

Zaharoula Mokbel failed in a bid to have her bail conditions relaxed after a court was told she had access to large amounts of money and could flee Australia.

Zaharoula Mokbel, 39, of Preston, who is accused of obtaining almost $2.3 million by using false employment documents, was trying to have bi-weekly police reporting removed from her bail conditions because she found it humiliating going to a police station.

But Detective Senior Constable Tammy Chippindall from Victoria Police's Purana team told the Melbourne Magistrates Court that Ms Mokbel had access to an "enormous" amount of unexplained wealth, despite being unemployed, and there was a risk she might disappear like her brother-in-law while on bail.

February 8, 2007
Man faces court over Zayat murder

Mahmoud Taiba, 30, of Noble park faced court today over Tuesday's murder of Haysan Zayat.

Zayat was the brother of Housam 'Sam' Zayat, shot dead during Melbourne's underworld war in September 2003.

Taiba was remanded in custody to appear on May 31.

February 16, 2007
Gelb gets bail

Dr Jerry Gelb was today bailed after being charged with firearms offences after attempting enter the Magistrates' Court with a loaded pistol on February 1.

Gelb, however has been banned from continuing to practice as a psychiatrist.

Gelb is an associate of underworld figure Tolli Spilliopolis.

February 20, 2007
Escape warder guilty (Herald Sun)

A former prison officer who helped her lover break out of jail has been found guilty to an assault on a woman in an apparent love triangle.

Heather Dianne Parker, 42, pleaded guilty to one count of recklessly causing causing serious injury to Heather Lee Gibbs.

The assault took place in September 2004.

Parker, of Rosebud West, helped her lover - Peter Robert Gibb - break out of the Melbourne Remand Centre in 1993.

The pair have two children together.

Last April Gibb was jailed for two months for attempting to pervert the course of justice after trying to get Ms Gibbs to drop her complaint against Parker.

Judge Ross Howie said Ms Gibbs told Parker that she had slept with Gibb.

Parker then verbally and physically attacked Ms Gibbs, Judge Howie said.

Parker's pre-sentence hearing is due to be held in the County Court on March 29.

February 21, 2007
Chopper Read tour on E-bay

3AW's Derryn Hinch reported that Mark "Chopper" Read was auctioning a tour on E-Bay in which Read would escort the lucky bidders around Melbourne to the scenes of 33 shootings which he was involved in.

Hinch interviewed Read's partner in the venture, Frank Deaney.

Mr Deaney said the pair met 30 years ago in a boys' home and he once shared a jail cell with Chopper.

Deaney, who operates a second-hand shop in Johnston St, Collingwood, was emotional in his defence of Read who Hinch accused of profiting from crime.

Hinch said that Read was criminal scum before Deaney reminded him that he was a criminal too (Hinch has previously served time for broadcasting the name of an accused paedophile).

Read is offering four-hour limousine tours of the city, showing places where his crimes were committed.

An internet tour advertisement promises sightseeing at "underground hotspots where all his greatest hits were made and where people were infamously murdered''.

Mr Deaney, who is organising the tour, said it was a great opportunity  to meet Chopper and hear his stories.

February 23, 2007
Brazel claim denied (Herald Sun) 

An elderly widower has denied a convicted killer's claims that he paid to have his wife murdered because she had cheated on him.

Mr Hanmer said claims by Gregory John Brazel and associate John David Marshall that he paid Brazel $30,000 to "take care of" Ms Hanmer were lies.

"There was no reason why I would want to get rid of my wife," Mr Hanmer told the court.

"I never met him or saw him or know anything of him. These people should be writing novels, I think."

Mr Hanmer told the court an unknown man had tried to extort money from him 18 years after his wife's death, claiming he "had a job done".

Ms Hanmer, 50, of Mt Eliza, was working alone at the couple's Mordialloc hardware shop when Brazel entered the premises on September 20, 1982, shot her in the back and stole about $2600.

The crime was unsolved until 2000 when Brazel confessed to the shooting while in prison for the murder of two prostitutes.

February 23, 2007
Properties raided as detectives hunt for Pastras shooter

Firearms and drugs have been seized as police investigating the October 2006 shooting of Michael "Eyes" Pastras raided two properties.

Purana taskforce detectives searched properties in Peck's Road Sydenham and Howqua Way, Taylor's Hill.

Two men were arrested.

One, a 26 year-old from Sydenham, was released on bail.

Police said they believed the Pastras shooting was drug related.

February 26, 2007
Police hope Hell's Angels fallout leads to murder arrest (The Age)

Police say long-time bikie Terrence Raymond Tognolini, has been expelled from the Hells Angels and can no longer rely on the protection of the international gang.

Tognolini's banishment is said to have come about after a vicious falling-out inside the Hell's Angels Motorcycle Gang.

Police and bikie sources have told The Age Tognolini was expelled from the gang about two weeks ago — eroding his power base and effectively cutting him loose.

In a traditional bikie farewell gesture he was badly beaten by up to 10 gang members. His bikie colours and memorabilia have also been confiscated.

Police say Tognolini ordered the murder of Tim Richards and Les Knowles, who were gunned down in an Adelaide auto repair shop on August 15, 1996. Gerald David Preston, a friend of Tognolini, was sentenced to 32 years' jail after he was found guilty of the murders. The High Court later reported: "The prosecution case was that the killings were carried out at the request of one Tognolini."

Preston's former wife, Vicki Jacobs, was a key prosecution witness in the case. She was murdered on July 12, 1999 when a killer shot her six times in the head and body as she slept on a fold-down settee with her son.

February 26, 2007
Faure pleads guilty on Moran murder charge

Noel Faure, 52, today entered a guilty plea to the murder of Moran crime family patriarch, Lewis Moran, when he appeared briefly by a video-link from Barwon Prison at the Melbourne Magistrates' Court.

He also pleaded guilty to intentionally causing serious injury to Moran's friend, Herbert Wrout after the prosecution withdrew charges of attempted murder.

Mr Faure, formerly of Geelong, was remanded in custody to appear in the Supreme Court in March.

February 26, 2007
Milad Mokbel faces court

February 28, 2007
Carl Williams - "One of the worst serial murderers in the history of Victoria."

Carl Williams appeared in the Supreme Court and pleaded guilty to the murder of three rivals.

Williams three times uttered the words "I plead guilty" to the charges of murdering Lewis Moran, his son Jason Moran and Mark Mallia.

He refused to plead over Pasquale Barbaro, shot dead as he sat in a van next to Jason Moran, as he claimed that death was an accident. As a result of the deal struck with Williams, he will never be charged with another six murders police believe he committed.

Dressed in a grey suit with a pink pin-stripe, a pink shirt and a striped pink tie, Williams was surrounded by four court security officers and appeared calm throughout the proceedings.

His supporters in court included his parents and a friend named Renate Laureano.

Williams had faced a morning of pre-trial legal argument in the Jason Moran case, which was due to pick a jury this week, and was on his way back to Barwon prison's top security unit when he asked to return to court.

He now faces spending the rest of his life in jail.

While Williams did not pull the trigger on any of the people he has admitted killing, he arranged for the executions and offered the gunmen cash.

Williams is already serving a jail-term for the 2003 murder of Michael Marshall - the outcome of that trial has been suppressed until now.

He was also found guilty of killing the hotdog salesman at a secret trial in October 2005 and jailed for at least 21 years.

In March 2006 the man who shot Marshall dead outside his South Yarra home pleaded guilty and surprised police by confessing Tony Mokbel was behind the murder plot.

While drug debts were thought to be the reason for Marshall's murder, the gunman has admitted the real motive was Mokbel's desire for vengeance over the earlier killing of Willie Thompson at Chadstone in 2003.

He alleged Tony Mokbel asked him and Carl Williams to kill Marshall during a meeting at a suburban Red Rooster, offering him $300,000 to arrange the hit – without realising Williams was behind Thompson's murder.

He was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 23 years.

Then in June 2006, another Williams ally also turned police informer and pleaded guilty to the murder of Jason Moran.

The man, who also cannot be identified, told police he was involved in planning the shooting and supplied one of the weapons, a shotgun.

He was sentenced to 23 years jail with a minimum term of 12 years.

Informers who turned against Williams in the past three years, which also included two killers of Lewis Moran, have told how he vowed revenge for being shot in the stomach by one of the Moran brothers in 1999.

Details of these developments have been suppressed until Williams' appearance in the Supreme Court.

Purana gangland taskforce head Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland hailed Williams' guilty pleas as a triumph.

"We're very pleased with the developments today," he told reporters.

"This in our view makes him one of the worst serial murderers in the history of Victoria."

Mr Overland said the result sent a clear message to the underworld.

"If you're an organised criminal, give up or leave - because we'll come and get you."

Williams' guilty pleas represent one of the most significant moments in the police probe into Melbourne's bloody gangland war, which raged between 1998 and 2006 and claimed more than two dozen lives.

Crown Prosecutor Geoff Horgan told the court the events "clears the slate as far as Carl Williams is concerned".

This means other charges Williams faced, including those for the murders of Mark Moran and Pasquale Barbaro, will not proceed.

Nor will a drug trafficking charge or a charge over making threats to kill a policeman's girlfriend.

Barbaro, who was Jason Moran's bodyguard, was not an intended victim but happened to be present when the gunman hired by Williams opened fire.

Mark Moran was shot dead outside his Aberfeldie home in 2000 and Williams is believed to have personally shot him dead.

Williams' lawyer David Ross, QC, told the court resolving these matters had saved the community millions of dollars.

"It is great credit to Mr Williams that he has been prepared to take this course," Mr Ross said.

Roberta Williams, who has recently converted to Islam, was shocked by Carl's decision to plead guilty to three gangland murders.

"Shit, I didn't know he was going to do that," she said.

At midday, the court process began before Justice King with pre-trial discussions. It was legal tent-boxing with a few slow punches thrown without any landing. First, Williams' team asked for an adjournment because of pre-trial publicity but the same argument had been tried before and had failed. Next was a move to suggest there was judicial bias and again it was doomed to fail. Then it was agreed the star protected witnesses could give video evidence for security reasons.

By 1pm, the court was adjourned for the day. There would be a few more pre-trial details to be cleared up and then a jury would be selected. On Monday, Chief Crown Prosecutor Geoff Horgan, SC, would begin his opening address to declare that Williams organised the murders of Jason Moran and Pasquale Barbaro, who were shot dead on June 21, 2003, while watching an Auskick junior football clinic.

Once the jury was empanelled, any chance of a deal for Williams would be over.

It was 2.10pm when Mr Horgan received a call in his chambers from Williams' barrister, David Ross, QC. The message was brief. "We may have a deal."

A message was passed to Justice King's associate Helen Marriott and a decision made to reconvene the court that day.

But Williams had left the court and was heading to Barwon Prison.

Then Justice King intervened and ordered the bus back.

The charge sheet was quickly typed, documents signed and Williams led back into court. Then Williams nodded his head.

February 28, 2007
Another warrant for Tony Mokbel -  Renate in court

Police have issued a warrant has been issued for the arrest of fugitive drug baron, Tony Mokbel over the 2004 murder of Lewis Moran.

Mokbel's sister-in-law, Renate Mokbel (left), appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates' Court charged with perjury and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

It was claimed that she falsely stated that she owned a Brunswick property which was put up as surety for Tony Mokbel before he fled overseas whilst standing trial on charges of drug importation.

Mrs Mokbel also faces allegations that she lied about her assets when she appeared in court on February 2 and said that she might need to borrow from banks to pay Tony Mokbel's $1 million surety and avoid jail.

Renate Mokbel was bailed and will re-appear in court in May.