Lawyer X: Carl Williams letter bid to prove his lawyer’s ‘conflicted’ role

A jailed Carl Williams hit out at Lawyer X, branding her a “dog” and a “double-dealing snake” in a bid to subpoena documents to prove his lawyer’s “conflicted” role. READ THE LETTER.

Drug lord Carl Williams wanted to subpoena documents in 2006 to prove that Lawyer X was a “double-dealing snake”.

As he languished in Barwon ­Prison, Williams outlined how he would prove his lawyer was a “dog”, according to the letter obtained by the Herald Sun.

Williams was enraged over what he described in the August 2006 ­letter as the lawyer’s “conflicted” role in getting witnesses to implicate him in murders. He also claimed in the ­letter to have alerted a member of the judiciary to his ­concerns.

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The ­Herald Sun revealed in March 2014 that Lawyer X was ­informing on clients to police.

In his letter to an associate, Williams wrote: “I will let you know that (Lawyer X) DID advise (name ­suppressed) shortly after (name also suppressed) went with the police to also do the same, and go with the police and make statements, and ultimately, give evidence against me and others, to try and put us in prison for a long time if not forever.

“To put it bluntly, she is a DOG & I will show her up for what she is, I believe people have a right to know … I don’t declare people unless I am 100% sure … in this case, I am a million % sure.”

web Carl Letter 650 850

The royal commission ­established by the Andrews Government to probe what has become Australia’s biggest legal scandal on Thursday called for submissions from anyone who had dealings with Lawyer X, also known as Informer 3838 — despite a suppression order that prevents her being identified.

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Williams wrote the letter soon after he had been ­convicted of ordering the 2003 execution of Michael Marshall in South Yarra and charged with the murder of Mark Mallia, whose body was found in a wheelie bin at Sunshine in the same year.

Williams — who had been advised by Lawyer X — said he was seeking material which would prove the situation “in black and white”.

Carl Williams is taken from Melbourne Supreme Court after a drug trafficking hearing in 2004.

“Subpoenas are a wonderful thing but not so good for double-dealing snakes as they can, and do, get found out for what they are,” he wrote.

Williams also states in the letter he had tried to take the matter further through the judiciary and legal profession.

“I have made a complaint about her to (a member of ­judiciary the Herald Sun has chosen not to name at this stage), I also believe my counsel has complained to the Ethics Committee about her,” he wrote. It is not clear whether the complaints were lodged.

Williams’ suspicions about Lawyer X grew while he was in prison. Her signature was regularly seen in the visitor book at Barwon Prison from about 2005, despite her having few professional reasons to visit Williams.

The killer said he did not know why she came. But he suspected she was gathering information to pass on. He is said to have figured out ­Lawyer X many years before his cell neighbour two doors down — Tony Mokbel.

“People have this view of Carl that he’s like the character in Underbelly,” said a legal source who knew Williams. “That’s nothing like him. He was a really smart guy.”

Mokbel, another of her ­clients, has launched an appeal against his 22-year jail ­sentence for drug trafficking, arguing his right to justice was undermined.

Many more appeals are ­expected, with the High Court ruling two months ago that her actions “were fundamental and appalling breaches” of her obligations to her clients and duties to the court.

An artist enhanced version of court supplied CCTV still. Matthew Johnson stands behind Carl Williams in Barwon Prison before Johnson killed him. Picture: Supplied

In another letter written by Carl Williams in 2006, which the Herald Sun obtained several years ago, he wrote of Lawyer X’s duplicity, saying: “There is a lot more stuff that I cannot say at the moment, but believe me I am 100 per cent right, as much as I don’t want to think I was.

“I had a lot of time for (her) and stuck up for her quite a lot of time with different people.”

The Herald Sun further revealed in December that Lawyer X warned Williams he should flee overseas as he was about to face murder charges, but then-wife Roberta convinced him to stay.

Roberta has said she did not like or trust Lawyer X. “Everyone knew that she got information from police, the lawyers, the judges, whoever, and that information was ­always right,” she said.

Carl Williams later agreed to help police investigating the killings of police informers Terry and Christine Hodson in East Kew in 2004, in exchange for a range of sweeteners.

He implicated himself as the middleman who organised the hit on behalf of ­allegedly corrupt detective Paul Dale. But he was beaten to death inside Barwon by jailhouse thug Matthew Charles Johnson in 2010 ­before he could testify.

Lawyer X was also a ­reluctant witness in that case after she secretly recorded a conversation with Dale. She would later volunteer to ­assist a police operation which ­investigated links to organised criminals outside prison for arranging the Williams hit. No charges were laid.

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Originally published as Lawyer X: Carl Williams letter bid to prove his lawyer’s ‘conflicted’ role