By Kate McClymont
With a yellow Gatorade in one hand and a packet of cigarettes in the other, notorious construction boss George Alex has handed himself into custody.
Earlier in the day, Supreme Court Justice Des Fagan ordered a warrant for Alex’s arrest. In a separate development, extraordinary revelations of juror misconduct have been detailed by the trial judge.
George Alex arrives at court on Friday.Credit: Jamie McKinnell / ABC
On Tuesday, after a six-month trial and more than a month of deliberations, the construction boss and his three co-accused were found guilty of a conspiracy to defraud the Tax Office of $10 million in what prosecutors described as a complicated “revolving-door” scheme.
Days earlier, the jury found the four guilty of money laundering. Lindsay Kirschberg, Gordon McAndrew and Pasquale Loccisano were taken into custody but the convicted mastermind remained at large. A fifth conspirator, Mark Ronald Bryers, had already been found guilty.
Alex’s doctor, former All Saints actor Jeremy Cumpston, who now treats patients with “bespoke advanced rejuvenation” at a cosmetic clinic he runs out of a Double Bay dental surgery, explained his patient was too ill for jail. Alex was being treated for an opioid addiction at Northern Beaches Hospital, Cumpston told the court on Monday.
The judge ordered Alex to appear in court in person at 10am on Friday. Instead, he appeared via an audiovisual link from the hospital.
George Alex outside the NSW Supreme Court at Darlinghurst last month.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos
“I just won’t tolerate this,” said the judge, who said he had no alternative but to issue a warrant for Alex’s arrest.
Alex’s barrister John Agius, SC, explained that his client had an “extremely emaciated” left leg which, due to lack of available treatments, he might lose if forced to go into custody. He was also being treated for a drug addiction due to the pain.
However, the judge pointed out that the injury was incurred 30 years ago, and that Alex had appeared to ignore it until the 99th day of the trial, July 24, when the jury retired to consider its verdict. Alex then dramatically increased his opioid intake, which the judge described as “effectively going on a bender”.
Alex did not wait for the police to arrest him, instead he strolled into Darlinghurst court just after 1pm on Friday and was taken into custody. He will be sentenced on November 21.
Meanwhile, it can be revealed that the trial, described by the judge as “a vast circumstantial case arising from an 18-month investigation”, was nearly derailed when the home of the jury’s foreman was raided concerning a drug investigation.
When Australian Federal Police executed search warrants concerning Juror G on June 5, his phone revealed that not only had he discussed selling illegal drugs to Juror A, but he had been conducting internet searches about Alex, the trial’s alleged mastermind. Doing this can constitute a criminal offence, punishable by up to five years’ jail.
The judge was informed that Juror G said to a federal agent, “I’m not the only one. There are others who’ve done worse than me.”
When the agent asked what he meant, Juror G replied, “Well, what would you do if you got offered something? Be better than having a target on your back.”
Juror G confirmed he was talking about money and added that six jury members had been approached.
Superintendent Matthew York of the Sheriff’s Office commenced an investigation the same day. Juror G told him that Juror A had told him to “name your price” regarding a financial incentive for a not guilty verdict.
Juror G also suggested that it was Juror A who had communicated with him about selling drugs and had suggested that they use an end-to-end encrypted messaging service called “SimpleX”.
Back at Darlinghurst court, York individually questioned the rest of the jury. Juror A, who was interviewed last, deleted his text messages with Juror G. However, York had all their exchanges from Juror G’s phone.
The jury members denied there’d been either a threat or inducement to influence the outcome of the case. Juror A also rejected the foreman’s claim that he had spoken of a financial incentive for a not guilty verdict. “I’m sure you’ve heard from other jurors. He’s [a] pretty, pretty wild dude,” he said of Juror G.
“All jurors replied in the negative, in some cases accompanied by expressions of surprise at the question,” noted Fagan, who has released his judgment detailing his reasons for discharging both jurors.
“It can be accepted with confidence that there was no such approach to any of the remaining 12,” he said.
At this time, the jury had sat through 64 days of evidence which had included 110 hours of phone intercepts as well as what the judge described as “voluminous banking records, financial tracing analyses in chart form, emails and accounting records and transactional documents concerning the conduct of a labour hire business”.
Because of the length of the trial, 14 jurors had been empanelled. The necessity to have a ballot to determine the final 12 became unnecessary with the discharge of the two men.
Alex’s barrister had called for the entire jury to be discharged. It was submitted that “some of the material Juror G had examined was so highly prejudicial to him that if any of the remaining jurors had become aware of it, through Juror G, they would find it impossible to disregard and would inevitably be influenced adversely in arriving at their verdict”.
The judge rejected the application to discharge the jury and the trial continued.
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