Magenta: Mitchell Smolinski admits stealing metal, damaging door but denies breaking and entering, assault
A man on parole over a violent home invasion where a victim lost his little finger has admitted damaging a door and stealing metal but denies breaking and entering, a court has heard.
Central Coast
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A man who spent three years in jail for a terrifying home invasion, where a victim lost his little finger, was spotted a few months later stealing metal from Magenta Shores Golf Club.
Mitchell Smolinski, 31, of Budgewoi, faced Wyong Local Court on Tuesday where he pleaded guilty to larceny and destroying property but not guilty to breaking and entering a pump room at the golf course and an unrelated assault.
An agreed set of facts states a greens keeper in a John Deere Gator 4WD arrived at the pump house between the 10th and 11th holes at 6.50am on October 18 last year and found the door had been broken.
The greens keeper walked down a nearby track and saw a man standing on a hill with a push bike and a backpack with what appeared to be a crowbar sticking out of it.
He rang police who attended and later found a thong, sunglasses, a mountain bike with a crowbar strapped to it and property belonging to the golf club including a bucket with large metal bolts and sealed batteries, hand sanitiser and copper pipe clamps.
Two days later a fingerprint taken from the broken door matched Smolinski’s with police attending an address at Gorokan where he was arrested.
He was taken to Wyong Police Station but could not be interviewed because of his level of intoxication. He was able to provide a DNA sample.
The sample was tested against DNA found on the strap of the backpack and it too matched Smolinski’s.
While he pleaded guilty to stealing the items and damaging the pump house door, Smolinski pleaded not guilty to breaking and entering the pump house and not guilty to assaulting another man about a month earlier on September 11 last year.
He was fined $550 and put on a community corrections order for eight months for the larceny and damaging property offences, with his case adjourned to December 19 to fix a trial date in Gosford District Court for the other two charges.
The court heard Smolinski was on parole at the time, having served a minimum of three years of a five-year jail sentence for kidnapping in company and recklessly inflicting grievous bodily harm.
The court in that matter heard Smolinski was heavily using ice in June 2019 when he formed a view that a man had sent his mum nude images and stolen from him.
Smolinski and a co-offender went around to the victim’s property at Charmhaven about 3am and held him against his will.
Smolinski’s co-offender hit the victim on the hand so hard with a metal pole it left his little finger dangling by the “skin only” before tying him up with cable ties.
The man’s finger could not be saved and was later amputated in hospital.
Smolinski’s co-offender was sentenced to six years jail with a non-parole period of three years after the judge found his role in the “gratuitous cruelty” was slightly worse.
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