District Court told Dylan Iliopoulos maintains his innocence despite being found guilty, by a jury, of blackmailing his former boss

A convicted blackmailer won’t accept his guilt and maintains his victim owed him money, a court has heard.

A contractor convicted of bashing and blackmailing his former boss for $25,000 has told a court he is innocent, despite the verdict of a jury, of what a judge has dubbed “an exercise in thuggery”.

In the District Court on Wednesday, counsel for Dylan Iliopoulos said their client accepted the jury’s verdict, would not file an appeal, but “does not admit the offending”.

They asked Judge Heath Barklay to impose a home detention, rather than prison, sentence on the grounds the case was “unusual”.

They argued the victim had owe Iliopoulos some money, for work done on a Naracoorte playground site, meaning the incident was not a case of “vigilante justice”.

Judge Barklay said he could not sentence on that basis.

“I accept there was a genuine debt, but it was not $25,000, and the real issue here is your client went in and roughed up demanding money that he was just never owed,” he said.

“Then he lied through his teeth to the police as to how the $25,000 got into his bank account, saying maybe the victim just wanted to give it to him for the job he did.

“That was an obvious pack of lies … is this not a classic case of your client taking the law into his own hands when there were other options available to him?

Dylan Iliopoulos. Picture: Facebook

Iliopoulos’ counsel says he maintains his innocence, despite being found guilty of blackmail. Picture: Facebook

“In fact, there was reference during the trial to a text message in which he said ‘the court process takes too long’.

“Assuming I accept the victim’s evidence – which, I can tell you, I do – this really was just an exercise in thuggery.”

Iliopoulos, 31, and his father Elias, 57, were found guilty at trial of aggravated blackmail over their attack upon Gary Doody in November 2020.

The duo assaulted Mr Doody after he ended a working relationship with Iliopoulos because of complaints about the quality of the playground site.

Prosecutors alleged, and the jury accepted, Iliopoulos had said “where’s my money, c***?” and claimed his job was “going around and getting money from builders who don’t pay”.

Mr Doody was left traumatised by the incident.

On Wednesday, Chris Allen, for Iliopoulos, said his client was a hardworking husband and father whose family would be “destroyed” were he jailed.

He argued his client’s complete lack of prior criminal history demonstrated good prospects for rehabilitation and warranted home detention rather than prison.

Judge Barklay agreed to order a home detention report, but stressed that was no indication as to how he would sentence the men.

He remanded them on continuing bail for sentencing next month.