Milton Orkopoulos: Ex-Labor MP pleads not guilty to breaching parole
Disgraced MP Milton Orkopoulos has formally pleaded not guilty to multiple alleged breaches of his parole conditions after his short stint of freedom outside Long Bay prison came to a swift end earlier this year.
Police & Courts
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Former Labor MP Milton Orkopoulos has pleaded not guilty to breaching his parole conditions within weeks of walking from Sydney’s notorious Long Bay prison.
The disgraced politician did not appear before Waverley Local Court on Wednesday when his matter was mentioned, and neither did his lawyer.
But the court confirmed not guilty pleas to charges laid by police at the end of his decade-long stint behind bars for child sexual abuse.
Orkopoulos, in 2008, was locked up for plying children with drugs and molesting them around his electorate of Swansea.
He was paroled in December and placed on the child protection register but, just one month later, was charged by police after allegedly setting up an Instagram account to follow soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo.
Officers allege he failed to advise them within the required seven days and allegedly spoke briefly with a child over the phone – both could constitute breaches of his release orders.
In February the 62-year-old was arrested again and charged with three counts of failing to comply with reporting restrictions after allegedly using another man’s phone that was connected to the internet to call his sister.
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He previously indicated he would fight all five charges.
Later this month Central Local Court will formally set a single hearing over two days for the breaches. That hearing will likely take place in December.
But those matters are not the biggest legal battle facing the former politician.
Last month, while in custody, he was hit with fresh child sex allegations dating back to the 1990s.
Police allege he assaulted an 11-year-old boy in the shower of a holiday home in Seal Rocks in either 1993 or 1994.
A few years later, police further allege, Orkopoulos sexually assaulted a second boy on multiple occasions in his car and in bushland near Swansea, where he was a rising star in the NSW Labor Party.
The father of the first alleged victim made allegations in 2014 that his son remembers signing away his complaint against Orkopoulos while in the presence of a high-profile Labor MP.
The rescinding of that complaint, the father said, saw his son sent to live with his alleged abuser and permitted Orkopoulos to ascension to the front bench of the then-Labor state government.
A court document, prepared by NSW Police and seen by The Daily Telegraph, includes the boy’s memory of signing away the complaint in 1997 before the other MP.
The father of the first boy alleged he had told numerous members of the police and political establishment about Orkopoulos but says his warnings fell on deaf ears.
The Labor MP he accuses of helping his son sign away his complaint has been contacted by The Daily Telegraph but declined multiple requests for comment.
That MP has not been charged and there is no suggestion they have broken the law.
Orkopoulos’ fresh child sexual abuse allegations will next be before a court in August.