Daniel Piccolotto: Coburg carpenter fakes court documents
A Coburg criminal tried to convince a court he was a churchgoer who was volunteering to teach children about the dangers of drugs. But the drug addict made his fair share of rookie mistakes in his attempt to con the court.
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A Coburg criminal who gave a court fake references to try to get a lighter sentence made the mistake of riddling the unbelievable letters with glaring errors.
Daniel Piccolotto pretended he was training to educate schoolchildren about the harms of drugs, and to be getting spiritual support from a church when he pleaded guilty to charges before Broadmeadows Magistrates’ Court.
But the thinly veiled attempts to fabricate his character only led to him facing the County Court charged with trying to pervert the course of justice — for a second time.
The 32-year-old fronted the court on Thursday to be sentenced, having pleaded guilty to the charge as well as charges for cultivating cannabis, committing an indictable offence on bail and failing to appear on bail.
The court heard Piccolotto handed up two letters when he pleaded guilty to driving offences before Broadmeadows Magistrates’ Court in December 2018.
One was purported to be from the Australian Anti Ice Campaign organisation, verifying Piccolotto was a registered volunteer who was training to educate schools and communities about the dangers of drugs.
It said he was going “over and above” the program by engaging with spiritual support from his local church, urging the court to see he was taking “measurable steps” to recover from drug addiction.
The second letter, supposedly from his employer, the manager of a carpentry company, claimed Piccolotto was one of the hardest workers he’d had.
Both documents were unsigned and full of spelling mistakes, with the name of the carpentry company spelt inconsistently.
The court heard when Piccolotto was questioned about the documents he couldn’t remember the name of his supposed employer.
It turned out no one at the carpentry company or volunteer organisation had ever heard of him.
An investigation into Piccolotto’s attempted deception then led to police finding three small cannabis plants growing in his Coburg backyard with a self-watering system.
The court heard the father had previously been convicted of attempting to pervert the course of justice after he tried to make a witness change their statement about hearing threats made to burn down a house and blow up cars.
Piccolotto had also previously been found guilty of lying to a customs officer and a series of drug and property crimes.
The court heard Piccolotto had been in jail on other matters for most of the time since he was charged with the crime in July 2019.
Judge Fiona Todd said his “unsophisticated and naive” attempt to deceive the court was a less serious version of the crime, and that she would credit him for pleading guilty.
She said she was also taking into account that the charges had taken so long to eventuate, and the difficult conditions in custody due to COVID-19.
Piccolotto was sentenced to seven months jail, with 66 days having already been served and fined $1000.
Judge Todd said the sentence would have been 12 months but for the guilty plea.
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