By Melissa Cunningham and Chris Vedelago
A tradesman accused of shooting gangland lawyer Joseph “Pino” Acquaro outside a gelato shop has walked out of court a free man after a murder charge against him was dropped.
At a brief Supreme Court hearing on Monday, the Office of Public Prosecutions formally abandoned the prosecution of Vincenzo Crupi after years of legal challenges.
Joseph “Pino” Acquaro was gunned down in Brunswick in March 2016. Credit: Paul Rovere
The move to discontinue the murder charge comes after Victoria Police last year won a lengthy High Court battle to protect the identity of an informer in the case, who police claimed would be in danger if their name were revealed.
The Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions did not provide in court a reason for the decision to abandon the case, but said it followed a review by a committee headed by Director of Public Prosecutions Brendan Kissane.
“The case against Vincenzo Crupi for the murder of Joseph Acquaro has been reviewed by the Director’s Committee and a special decision made to discontinue the prosecution,” a statement from the Office of Public Prosecutions said.
“Every prosecution must have reasonable prospects of conviction and be in the public interest.
Vincenzo Crupi outside court in February.Credit: AAP
“This decision followed very careful consideration of the case with respect to these criteria and, as with all matters involving a death, was not arrived at lightly.”
Acquaro, 54, was gunned down outside his East Brunswick gelato shop, Gelobar, in March 2016. The gangland lawyer had represented many members of Melbourne’s underworld, including mafia figures, and had been rumoured to have been a police informant.
Police charged Crupi, who has always maintained his innocence, with the lawyer’s murder in November 2018. He had been set to stand trial in 2019, but the case was indefinitely delayed by several legal challenges over revealing police sources.
For nearly two years, Victoria Police waged battles in the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal and the High Court to prevent exposing the informer who provided information used in the investigation.
Credit: Vince Caligiuri
Victoria Police released a “substantial number of documents” but withheld about 600 pages of extra information, concerned their release could reveal the informer’s identity. Police claimed at the time that the informer faced “a real risk of death” if their identity were made known.
In November 2022, Supreme Court judge Christopher Beale ruled disclosure of the information “is likely to be of substantial assistance to the defence in the conduct of their case” and ordered its release.
In March last year, this masthead reported that the murder prosecution was in doubt, with police prepared to drop the case if they lost a bid to keep the supergrass’s identity a secret. But the High Court ruled in favour of the police and sent the case back to the Supreme Court. The role of the informer in the case has never been known.
Speculation has been rife since Acquaro’s death about his relationship with police and following the exposure of Nicola Gobbo’s double life as a barrister-turned-informer.
Other court proceedings have heard that Acquaro had “two discrete sets of interactions” with police, in 2008 and 2014. Victoria Police has maintained it rejected formally recruiting Acquaro on both occasions because he was considered to be “unreliable and prone to leaking to the press”.
Acquaro’s interactions with police also become central to the appeals of at least two of his former clients who are serving lengthy jail sentences, reputed Calabrian crime figure Francesco “Frank” Madafferi and drug trafficker Saverio Zirilli.
A hearing was told Acquaro’s actions in 2014 “may be of substantial assistance to Madafferi in his appeal”.
The collapse of the murder case comes weeks after drug kingpin Tony Mokbel walked from custody. The underworld figure had made a bid for bail after being locked up for nearly 18 years – overseas and then in Victoria – for drug trafficking, a prosecution that his legal team argues has been hopelessly corrupted by the Lawyer X scandal.
At the hearing on Monday, Crupi’s lawyers flagged that he would seek the legal costs associated with the High Court battle.
John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld. Subscribers can sign up to receive his Naked City newsletter every Thursday.