Umina: Peter Gavranich, 31, pleads guilty to assault, drugs and weapons offences but denies shooting a man
A man has pleaded guilty to a raft of violent offences as well as possessing weapons and supplying drugs, but denies shooting someone during an alleged home invasion, a court has heard.
Central Coast
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A man will face court next month to fix a trial date after pleading not guilty to shooting a man and causing grievous bodily harm during an alleged home invasion.
Peter Gavranich, 31, of Ettalong Beach, faced Gosford Local Court on Friday where he pleaded guilty to 13 offences including reckless wounding, intimidation, possessing knives, ammunition and a pistol, contravening an apprehended violence order (AVO) and supplying a large quantity of meth.
However Gavranich pleaded not guilty to a further 10 charges including discharging a firearm with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, aggravated breaking and entering, assault in company and reckless wounding.
An agreed set of facts in his guilty matters states he and another man started pressuring an acquaintance to sell ounces of cocaine on their behalf in 2022.
When the man failed because he “did not have the right connections or customers” Gavranich and his co-accused went around to the victim’s Umina Beach home and violently assaulted him about 6pm on February 21 last year.
The facts state Gavranich punched the man in the face and held a gun to his head and threatened to “put a bullet in your head in front of your mrs and your kids” if he didn’t do better at selling cocaine.
The man later went to hospital with a broken nose and a cut above his left eye which required about 16-17 stitches.
On September 17, 2023, Gavranich was recorded talking about the assault saying “last time I seen him, when he f--ked up ... I f--ken smashed him” while his co-accused was recorded saying Gavranich “pistol whipped him”.
The facts state the victim was so scared he got his parents to take out a bank loan of $20,000 to buy his way out of selling any more cocaine for the duo.
Months later in September, the brother-in-law of the victim was selling his car when Gavranich and his co-accused made contact under the guise of being interested buyers.
They came around to his workplace and all three got in the car and Gavranich and his co-accused started talking to the man about his brother-in-law who they claimed still owed them a further $12,000.
They asked him where his brother-in-law was living now and urged him to contact him and get him to return their calls or they would start burning down their family’s homes.
During the conversation, Gavranich’s co-accused took out a large knife and placed it on the centre console and told the man they had thought about bringing guns but settled on “blades”.
After the pair left the man went straight to Wyong Police Station to report it.
On September 21, 2023, police arrested Gavranich at the 7-Eleven service station at Avoca Beach where he was driving while disqualified and had a pocket knife hidden in the elastic of his shorts.
Police later searched Gavranich’s Ocean View Drive address where they found a fully loaded seven-shot revolver hidden in his kitchen exhaust fan and 231.94g of meth.
As part of the investigation police also reviewed Gavranich’s bank records and found he had been breaching an AVO by transferring nominal amounts of $1 into the account of a protected person so he could pass a note to them in the “message” field of the online transaction.
Gavranich will face Gosford District Court on December 5 for arraignment and to fix a trial date.
His co-accused is yet to enter a plea and remains before the local court.
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