Sean Sonnet pleads guilty to intentionally causing injury

Decades after Sean Sonnet was convicted over a failed hit on underworld figure Mario Condello, it can be revealed his life of crime has continued.

Sean Sonnet has been jailed over a “brutal” daylight stabbing attack.

A gangland gun-for-hire career criminal — and brother of a Melbourne magistrate — has been locked up over a “brutal” daylight stabbing attack.

Decades after Sean Jason Sonnet, 55, was convicted over a failed hit on underworld figure Mario Condello during Melbourne’s gangland wars, it can be revealed his life of crime has continued.

Sonnet, whose sibling is former prosecutor-turned magistrate Brett Sonnet, fronted Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday where he was jailed for 15 months after pleading guilty to intentionally causing injury.

Sean Sonnet outside the Supreme Court.

The court heard he grabbed two knives from his bag and thrusted one into his victim’s chest following an affray in East Melbourne at 9.30am on August 31 last year.

The victim had been sitting in the park with his girlfriend, who asked Sonnet if he had a cigarette as he walked past.

When he replied no, her boyfriend didn’t believe him and confronted him.

Punches were thrown by both men, before the complainant tried to retreat back to his girlfriend, who yelled for him to “watch out” as she saw Sonnet come at him armed with the knives.

“Put your f---ing blades away and let’s go,” the victim egged Sonnet on before he was stabbed.

Critical Incident Response Team officers arrested Sonnet soon after, using a Taser on him after he armed himself with a tomahawk as they approached him.

The bloodied knife was found down his pants, and his bag contained ziplock bags of methamphetamine and cannabis.

Sonnet had been bailed three weeks earlier on strict conditions including a 9pm to 6am curfew and that he abstain from drugs and alcohol.

He was also undergoing a drug and alcohol treatment order as part of sentencing over an armed robbery at an Aldi store and an attempted armed robbery at a Dan Murphy’s a day apart in Geelong in January 2022.

Sean Sonnet with Gavin ‘Capable’ Preston.

Sean Sonnet is said to no longer have any contact with his brother, Magistrate Brett Sonnet (above).

Sonnet’s lawyer Emma Turnbull said her client had a “complex” history, having spent much of his life behind bars, and when released struggles with homelessness and drug relapses in the community.

“Mr Sonnet is a severely institutionalised man,” Ms Turnbull said. “He has done what can only be described as hard jail.”

Sonnet was a former associate of late drug kingpin Carl Williams. It was Williams who was said to have offered him more than $100,000 to kill Condello.

But the would-be hitman was arrested near the Carlton Crew member’s home in June 2004 with a loaded .45 automatic pistol and a .38 revolver.

He spent 10 1/2 years behind bars for conspiracy to murder.

Sonnet’s rap sheet also includes drug trafficking, armed robbery, aggravated burglary, family violence, driving and firearms offences.

In 2000, he was one of five accused in the infamous “Trial from Hell” - charged over the 1998 bashing of another inmate at Barwon Prison - with a co-accused throwing a bag of excrement at the jury and two others exposing their buttocks.

An earlier court heard how Sonnet was the youngest of three siblings, born and raised in Keysborough in a “normal and uneventful” childhood.

He is said to no longer have any contact with his magistrate brother or sister.

With time served, Sonnet’s earliest release date would be August next year.

Originally published as Sean Sonnet pleads guilty to intentionally causing injury