Sydney’s criminal lawyers reveal memorable events of their careers
One was threatened by an accused murderer, another was asked to swim in the ocean for a meeting with a paranoid drug dealer. Sydney’s elite criminal lawyers reveal the most memorably unusual moments in their careers.
Police & Courts
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The job description includes interviewing murderers, being threatened by bikies and wondering if you will make it out of meetings alive. Welcome to the world of Sydney’s elite criminal lawyers.
STRANGEST CONFERENCE
Stephen Alexander
Criminal lawyers frequently have to meet clients to discuss their cases, but Stephen Alexander discovered that paranoid clients often demand that to happen in unusual places.
“I had a client on serious drug charges and he communicated that he wanted to have a meeting at Bondi Beach,” Mr Alexander said.
“My expectation was that it would be at a restaurant or a cafe.
“When I arrived at the beach I was met by my client’s offsider who handed me a pair of board shorts.
“He then pointed out into the ocean off North Bondi and said ‘He’s waiting for you out there’.
“So, I swam out and he gave me legal instructions neck deep in the ocean.
“He was so paranoid about listening devices and surveillance I had to meet him in the water.”
NASTIEST THREAT
Charles Waterstreet
It is hard to believe that anyone has ever threatened to kill barrister Charles Waterstreet, but it did happen about 15 years ago.
“I represented two brothers on murder charges which resulted in one of the brothers getting acquitted and the other being found guilty,” Mr Waterstreet said.
“The brother who got off was so angry that he rang me and said ‘I want to kill you’. I said ‘I’m very busy, you will have to make an appointment’. So I got an ex cop to sit in my waiting room for this guy.
“The brother did eventually turn up, but the ex cop talked him out of it.”
PERKS
Kiki Kyriacou
There are the occasional perks to the job of representing the top tier of Sydney’s underworld.
Solicitor Kiki Kyriacou once had a client who was sick of how long it would take him to walk down a flight of stairs to answer and unlock the security door on his office.
“I came in to work one day and there was a bloke waiting for me who installed a state of the art doorbell, CCTV camera and buzzer — he’d been sent and paid for by the client,” Mr Kyriacou said.
“It was the early 2000s so it was state-of-the-art for the time.”
‘FRENEMIES’
Ben Archbold
In criminal law, sometimes it is best to keep your mouth shut.
This could have been applied in at least two ways during one case for solicitor Ben Archbold at Campbelltown District Court.
It involved a number of family members who were to be sentenced for their roles a violent riot.
However, the court sheriffs discovered that one of the men had attempted to smuggle cannabis by secreting it in balloons and then inserting them into an orifice that was not his mouth. But the man had inserted too many, which were now popping out of him in the dock.
The judge asked everyone to leave the court except Mr Archbold who assisted the sheriffs in placing the soiled balloons in a bag.
“I didn’t want to touch the things,” Mr Archbold said.
“So I grabbed some pens off the bar table and used them like chopsticks.”
When proceedings resumed: “I looked over and the barrister I had briefed in the matter was chewing on the pens — he was a habitual pen chewer and was having a real chomp. It was horrifying. To this day I have never told that barrister what happened to his pens.”
WEIRDEST REQUEST
John Hajje
High maintenance clients make all manner of requests — like late bikie Robert “JJ” Heeney.
Heeney, an ex-Comanchero, locked up over the Milperra Massacre took up the guitar behind bars and bizarrely fell in love with classical music, rather than something like AC/DC.
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So the job fell to his lawyer, John Hajje, to obtain sheet music for Heeney and then get it to him in jail.
“He loved this classical guitarist called Andreś Segovia, so it had to be sheet music for his songs,” Mr Hajje said.
“I had no idea and had to run all over the city trying to find it but some shop put me onto some other downstairs joint that actually sold it.
“It was a bit of a rigmarole as to how to get it to Heeney in jail because they weren’t legal documents.
“But that’s all he wanted — sheet music. And cigarettes.”
CONFRONTATIONS
Maggie Sten
Brothers For Life gang leader and convicted murderer Farhad Qaumi is one of Australia’s most feared men, but he is no longer on speaking terms with lawyer Maggie Sten.
That’s because Ms Sten gave him a verbal spray for the ages while she got him acquitted in a double murder trial in 2009.
It had such an effect on Qaumi that evidence of him talking about it on a phone that was tapped even turned up in a police brief of evidence.
Qaumi was recorded telling a co-accused: “Maggie, that bitch. Don’t (hire) her.”
One could say that was a compliment from the likes of Qaumi.
‘FACES OF EVIL’
Tony Bellanto
After 52 years as a barrister, Tony Bellanto has seen it all, but there’s one thing he still can’t get over.
When he sits down for conferences with clients who have been accused of horrific acts, they always seem so normal.
This includes the woman charged with trying to dissolve her husband’s body under their house using lime that ended up seeping over the driveway; as well as a gay hate murder with a machine gun.
One factor was common to all of them.
“Meeting these people it’s just like meeting someone in the street,” Mr Bellanto said.
“Most people think someone accused of such a crime would have an evil look about them. (But) it’s just like talking to the average person.”
HAUNTING CONFESSION
Omar Juweinat
Omar Juweinat is haunted by a case where the evidence showed the person had a mental illness and could not be held responsible for murder.
The person was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter and sentenced to a good behaviour bond and range of psychiatric treatment.
But soon after the sentence, the person called Mr Juweinat.
“The client said ‘I’ve got to get something off my chest. I committed the murder’,” Mr Juweinat said.
He reported the call to several authorities but the call did not change the manslaughter sentence because of a combination of the mental illness and double jeopardy laws.
PSYCHIC MOMENT
Paul McGirr
Paul McGirr had a tradesman build a fence around his house after randomly finding him online.
The tradie revealed he had previously served a stint in jail, insisted he didn’t need a business card from Mr McGirr for legal help in the future but took it anyway.
A week later Mr McGirr received a call from the tradie who needed a lawyer after being arrested on drug charges.
Mr McGirr felt it was his legal duty to declare to the police the tradie had built his fence.
An officer replied: “We know. We have had him under surveillance for a long time. We even have footage of you, him and Laurie Daley throwing a footy to each other outside your house.”
Laurie Daley is a friend and neighbour of Mr McGirr and neither had any awareness of the tradie’s alleged drug activities.
SILLIEST JOKE
Greg Goold
Ironically for a solicitor best known for successfully defending model Sarah Budge on weapons charges, Greg Goold fired a .357 Magnum in the foyer of Central Local Court when he was the victim of a practical joke by two police officers.
Mr Goold knew the pair and went up to have a chat before his case.
“One of them holds up the Magnum and says: ‘Do you want to hold this and check it out?’”
Mr Goold said: “I said: ‘Of course’.”
As he took hold of the firearm and examined its detailing, a deafening boom echoed through the high ceilings of the tiled court foyer, causing everyone to dive to the floor — except for the cops, who were doubled over laughing.
“It was their idea of a practical joke,” Mr Goold said.
“They had loaded the gun with blanks and it had a hairpin trigger.”
ANGRIEST CLIENT
Brett Galloway
Brett Galloway enraged former bikie boss Sam Ibrahim more than a decade ago by refusing to represent him in an upcoming case unless the bikie settled his $30,000 bill from another case.
“He threatened to kill me if I didn’t show up,” Mr Galloway said.
“So I told him that if he was going to do it could he please do it before the close of business because it was going to be pointless doing hours worth of work preparing for the next day if he was going to kill me.”
Ibrahim hung up and Galloway turned his attention to the work piled up on the desk of his Darlinghurst office.
Less than half an hour later, a motorbike rumbled to a stop outside his office.
Ibrahim walked in and threw $30,000 cash at Mr Galloway.
“He said something like: ‘You’re the funniest bloke I know sitting up here waiting for me, knowing what I would do to you’,” Galloway recalled.
CREEPIEST CALL
Ahmed Dib
Ahmed Dib can count 11 former clients who have died. This includes Kemel “Blackie” Barakat, who was allegedly shot dead by assassins posing as police.
“I was in bed asleep when I received a call from Blackie at about 12.30 (am),” Mr Dib said.
“He goes: ‘Lad, the police are here. They’re asking to be buzzed up, but they’re blocking the CCTV camera’.”
Barakat apparently let the men into his building and made one more call to Mr Dib.
“He said: ‘They (the men posing as police) tell me that someone has taken out a (murder) contract on me’.”
Mr Dib was woken by another phone call several hours later. It was an associate who told Mr Dib that Mr Barakat had been murdered.
INTERIOR FEAR
Peter Katsoolis
As a junior lawyer, Peter Katsoolis had to take a statement in a client’s home but was not sure if he would make it out alive.
“He had swastika curtains and, under the floorboards, I could see these savage dogs that were chained up and going absolutely berserk,” he said.
Then there were the sets of cable ties on the table.
“I was certain I wasn’t going to walk out alive,” he said.
Mr Katsoolis’ only hope was that his then boss, Paul Kenny, was also coming over to the house. After an agonisingly nervous wait, Mr Kenny arrived.
“Paul walked in the door, took one look at the curtains and said: ‘I love what you’ve done with the place’,” Mr Katsoolis said.