The Snitch: Drug smuggler Luke ‘Fatboy’ Sparos wins murder trial
Convicted drug smuggler Luke “Fatboy” Sparos seems to have all the luck. He not only recently won his own murder trial while defending himself, despite having no legal training, but the taxpayer had to pay him $150,000 for the privilege.
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They say good things happen to good people. But that doesn’t explain why they keep happening to convicted drug smuggler Luke “Fatboy” Sparos.
Sparos recently won his own murder trial while defending himself, despite having no legal training.
Now, news has broken that we the taxpayer had to pay him $150,000 for the privilege.
Sparos was found not guilty of the murder of a man who was shot dead before he could give evidence in his drug smuggling case.
According to a recently published judgment from the case, a decision by the crown resulted in Sparos being paid the six figure sum. Sparos had two barristers locked in to appear in his trial.
But prosecutors announced at the 11th hour one of the barristers could be a witness in the case and was conflicted from representing Sparos in the case.
Things got complicated after that because the other barrister who remained was only appearing in the case on the condition that the barrister who was now conflicted out would also appear.
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The result was the barristers could not appear in the trial. Sparos launched a costs application for the money that his legal team were paid in preparing for the trial.
He won that too and was awarded $150,950, according to the judgment.
MEDICH FINDS HIS LUNCH MONEY
Now that Ron Medich is behind bars, the property developer turned murderer’s cash flow problems seem to have gone away.
So much so that Snitch has been told he is lining up Australia’s most expensive barrister, Bret Walker SC, to run his appeal against his murder conviction.
Medich was jailed for a minimum 30 years for orchestrating the contract killing of his former friend Michael McGurk in 2009.
His trial famously almost went off the rails in 2016 when Medich fronted the NSW Supreme Court and said he was down to his last $1000 and couldn’t afford to keep paying his lawyers.
Medich was grilled on the issue by then crown prosecutor Gina O’Rourke, who went through his bank records and asked him to explain when he was spending between $300 to $670 every day on lunch. Medich replied: “I don’t cook … so I eat out most of the time.”
With Medich now living on a taxpayer-funded prison food diet, it seems he has more spare cash these days.
Mr Walker is rumoured to charge around the $20,000 a day mark for his services. Now that’s a lot of lunches. Unfortunately, Mr Walker’s office did not return Snitch’s calls to confirm either way.
THE PECKING ORDER
If you’ve ever wondered how the pecking order among NSW Supreme Court judges works, Justice Natalie Adams gave us an insight on Friday.
It turns out the big swinging types among the judges’ ranks get the courtrooms that have better technology — like bigger TV screens and superior speakers for the jury to be played evidence.
Meanwhile, the newbie judges have to settle for the courtrooms with dud acoustics, tiny TVs and the other constraints that come with buildings designed in the pre-bluetooth era of the mid 1800s.
Sadly for Justice Adams, she is still in the newbie category having been sworn in as a judge
in 2016.
The equation boils down to the senior judges getting their matters heard in the more advanced courtrooms at the NSW Supreme Court’s King St complex, while those still climbing the judicial ladder having to schlep their way up Oxford St to the Darlinghurst complex.
“The more senior judges get King St and the more junior judges get Darlinghurst,” Justice Adams, while presiding over the murder case of Osama Hawat on Friday at Darlinghurst, told the court.
She said she was doing all she could to ensure the case would have the best technology on offer.
Justice Adams also remarked that on previous court hearings at Darlinghurst the television had been so small the jury were asked to step out of the jury box just so they could see it.
It turns out the lawyers hate going to Darlinghurst too.
“It’s full of mould,” one said.
“It’s absolutely appalling that court.”
Over to you NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman.
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