Sirens nightclub owner Ross Glynatsis hired Bandido bikie, court hears
The owner of a well-known Central Coast nightclub “visited it upon himself” when he got involved with bikies which led him to arming himself with a gun, a court has heard.
Central Coast
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Explosive details have emerged at the sentencing hearing for Sirens nightclub owner Ross Glynatsis including that he first hired a Bandido bikie to settle a debt, only to become the target of extortion and threats, which led to him arming himself with a loaded pistol and other weapons.
Glynatsis, who turns 65 on Saturday, faced Gosford Local Court on Friday having already pleaded guilty to eight weapons and drug offences following a police raid of his Erina unit in October last year.
An agreed set of police facts, tendered in court, states Glynatsis had no previous criminal history but had become the victim of an extortion attempt by a Bandidos member in 2018.
“The offence involved serious, multiple, ongoing demands and threats over a period of a little more than a month,” the facts read.
“It included threats to involve members of the Bandidos and on at least one occasion other members of the Bandidos were present as part of the demands.”
Glynatsis reported it to police, who established Strike Force Anomy.
Glynatsis’ solicitor Manni Conditsis told the court as part of that investigation his client “wore a wire”.
On July 15, 2019, following a plea of guilty, the bikie was sentenced in Gosford District Court to 22 months imprisonment with a non-parole period of 14 months.
With time served since his arrest his non-parole period was to expire a week earlier on July 8, 2019.
The agreed facts state in August 2019 Glynatsis started receiving threats, which he understood to be related to him having reported the bikie’s extortion to police.
Mr Conditsis said Glynatsis was so scared he even went to police and asked them for a gun for his protection.
“They laughed and told him he couldn’t have a gun,” Mr Conditsis told the court.
However the court heard for the first time it was Glynatsis who “visited it upon himself” when he asked a former bouncer who worked for him if he could introduce him to a bikie.
Magistrate Peter Barnett said the “catalyst and source of (his) difficulties” was when he decided to buy the cafe under Sirens nightclub only to discover later the business owed Central Coast Council $40,000.
He said Glynatsis thought the vendor should have to pay and withheld the amount when he bought the business only to get a visit from five “Middle Eastern men”.
“He spoke to a former bouncer who introduced him to a Bandido (who) came with him when he visited the Middle Eastern men,” Mr Barnett said.
The magistrate said Glynatsis paid the bikie a “service fee” of $2,000 but the bikie started making demands for regular payments of $10,000, of which Glynatsis paid twice, before complaining to the bouncer who introduced him.
Mr Barnett said that led to threats of inviting “100 bikies to come around” and a bit of “argy-bargy” at the nightclub before Glynatsis went to police, which led to the bikie’s imprisonment.
The court heard police applied and were granted a warrant to search Glynatsis’ three bedroom unit at Erina.
At 9.35am on October 17, 2019, Strike Force Raptor officers attended his unit where they located an Ema-Werke EP652.22 calibre pistol with a magazine fitted containing six rounds in his bedside drawer.
They also seized a box of 0.22 calibre Winchester hollow point rounds, a clear freezer bag containing .22 calibre rounds and a number of loose .22 rounds.
Police then searched the whole property and found a box of Scorpio 12 gauge shot gun rounds in his bedroom closet.
In the garage police found an extendible baton, a taser-like device and a flick knife.
Officers also found 4.9g of cannabis leaf in a kitchen cupboard, 1g of cannabis leaf loose in a bowl on the kitchen bench and a jar containing 24.2g of cocaine.
In another kitchen cupboard police found a resealable bag containing 2.23g of cocaine and 14 other resealable bags with the total quantity of cocaine being 33.93g.
His solicitor, Mr Conditsis, told the court Glynatsis only supplied his friends.
Asked if they were the same good friends who provided the court glowing character references, Mr Conditsis said “no”.
“All of them were of the female variety,” Mr Conditsis said of the people Glynatsis supplied cocaine.
Mr Barnett convicted Glynatsis of all eight offences and sentenced him to a 10-month intensive corrections order for possessing the gun.
He also fined him a total of $3,200 for possessing ammunition and the drugs, put him on a community corrections order for two years for supplying cocaine and having prohibited weapons being the flick knife, baton and taser.
As part of his sentence Glynatsis will also have to perform 250 hours of community service and abstain from illegal drugs.