Mark Caleo sentenced to 9 years for paying hitman to kill wife Rita
NEARLY three decades after both her siblings were murdered, Angelina Chye had lost all hope of bringing those responsible to justice. And while Mark Caleo has been jailed, she cannot feel closure.
NSW
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NEARLY three decades after both her siblings were murdered, Angelina Chye had lost all hope of bringing those responsible to justice.
And although former high-flying Sydney restaurateur Mark Caleo has been jailed for ordering his wife Rita Caleo’s killing, her sister cannot feel closure.
Angelina Chye is disappointed by his minimum nine-year jail term and is filled with “sorrow and a sense of incompleteness” that Caleo was acquitted of soliciting her brother’s killing.
Caleo, 55, was in April found guilty of ordering Ms Caleo’s “cold-blooded” murder, solving one of the state’s most notorious cold cases.
Tongan national and father-of-six Alani Afu, 51, was convicted of fatally stabbing Ms Caleo 23 times in the bathroom of her Double Bay home as her daughters slept in the next room in August 1990.
Caleo remained stony-faced as he was sentenced to 12 years in jail with a non-parole period of nine years in the NSW Supreme Court on Thursday.
Afu gave a thumbs-up and waved to supporters as he was led away after being handed a maximum 20-year prison sentence with a minimum term of 15 years.
“We cannot imagine the trauma Rita went through in her last moments, but we choose to remember her as a loving mother to her young daughters,” Ms Chye wrote in a statement read outside court by friend Geoff Thompson.
The jury acquitted the former used car salesman of organising the murder of his brother-in-law Michael Chye, who was shot in the head at his home in Woollahra in October 1989.
Justice Robert Hulme said the attack had “all the hallmarks of being a professional hit”.
“We pray that one day Michael will be able to rest in peace knowing that those responsible for his death will be brought to justice,” she said.
Caleo paid $10,000 to the former Kings Cross bouncer, whom the judge labelled a thug motivated by greed, to carry out the contract killing and frame it as a robbery gone wrong.
Family’s statement after sentencing
“The horror of what he had done had little impact upon him; within days he had squandered the proceeds of his crime on a frivolous motor car,” Justice Hulme said.
Caleo was an embittered husband motivated to kill his older wife when she wrote him out of her will after he had an affair with her “much younger” friend, the judge said.
Fearful of losing half his fortune in a divorce settlement, Caleo “saw the way forward in a cold-blooded plan to get rid of his wife by having her murdered”.
The pair was arrested in 2015 after a fresh police investigation.
Justice Hulme said that for unknown reasons prosecutors withdrew Caleo’s murder charges and opted for the less serious charge of soliciting murder, meaning he couldn’t take into account the fact that Ms Caleo died when doling out punishment.
Caleo abandoned his two young daughters after their mum died, and Ms Caleo’s Malaysian family never contacted the youngest daughter who said they’d been “living in fear” of her father.
Angelina Chye praised the bravery of those who came forward to give evidence in the trial.
“Some of these witnesses have had to overcome many inner fears for facing Mark Caleo and taking the stand,” she wrote.
“We thank you for your courage and determination for doing the right thing.”
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