Gangland lawyer Joe Acquaro in too deep before violent Brunswick East death
JOE Acquaro - the slain lawyer who fancied himself as a mob consigliore - got in too deep to extricate himself, and his attempts to drift away quietly were interpreted as a hostile move.
Law & Order
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WHEN Underbelly star Damian Walshe-Howling stepped out of his Brunswick East home into Lygon St yesterday he walked into a real-life scene of the sort that inspired the drama he electrified as hitman Andrew “Benji” Veniamin.
Walshe-Howling, still easily recognisable as the gun-happy sociopath he played so well, was blocked by crime scene tape across the footpath outside the Gelobar.
The bar, where the actor sometimes takes friends to eat, is (or was) part-owned by so-called gangland lawyer Joe “Pino” Acquaro, shot dead in the street after midnight.
For a man who’d told friends there was a $200,000 contract out on his life, Acquaro was either fatalistic, fatally depressed, or seriously overconfident.
Despite warnings from police and offers of protection — which he refused — he seemed to take no real precautions.
He locked up after midnight and walked to his car, parked in nearby St Phillip St, providing a perfect opportunity for a waiting shooter.
It was hours before a passing garbage-truck driver noticed the slumped body and called for help.
By dawn, the theories — and rumours — were raging.
No wonder. It was the nearest thing to the original gangland war since another Italian lawyer, Mario Condello, was murdered at his Brighton house 10 years ago.
So who shot “Pino” Acquaro and why?
Perceptions might not be everything, but they can get you killed. Acquaro becoming the Melbourne mafia’s go-to lawyer in the late 1990s was a double-edged sword.
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On one hand he was assured of high-profile and potentially lucrative work representing elements of the Calabrian community, sinister people whose tentacles stretch from inner Melbourne to Griffith, Mildura and Adelaide, all the way back to southern Italy.
Nothing wrong with that: someone has to do it, and good criminal lawyers balance their responsibilities to their clients and to the judicial system.
But as a lawyer, Joe Acquaro was never just another cab off the rank. The mafia lawyer was the mafia’s lawyer. Technically, he was a “cleanskin”, but ethnically and socially he was one of their own.
He spoke the same dialect as the members of the secretive Calabrian crime organisation ’Ndrangheta and grew up knowing its code of silence.
In fact, the story goes in legal circles, the “made” mafia men made Acquaro into a lawyer and accountant.
Like some other bright youngsters — such as the late Mario Condello, for instance — he stood out. Friendly “godfathers” made sure he went through university to study law and accountancy, core subjects for organised crime.
Meanwhile, the ambitious Acquaro also worked part-time at the Melbourne wholesale fruit and vegetable market, racketeer headquarters.
Whatever his differences with his Calabrian patrons in recent times, there was a time when he was anxious to catch their eye. When one of the notorious Madafferi family married, young Acquaro turned up uninvited, keen to rub shoulders with heavy hitters.
At the time, well-known criminal lawyer Andrew Fraser was first choice of the Madafferis and their circle. But when Fraser was arrested in 1999 — and subsequently jailed for cocaine offences — Acquaro stepped up. He liked to boast he was the Calabrian society’s “avvocato” or consigliore, an adviser if not a criminal himself.
It was a decision he’d come to regret in the months leading up to his death. The once-trusted adviser was no longer trusted. Acquaro’s friends noticed he had lost weight in the last six months, even before the mysterious fire that damaged the upstairs section of the Gelobar in late January.
He told friends he hated the stress of work as a criminal lawyer and enjoyed running the Gelobar much more. But he didn’t look relaxed.
Detectives are studying the most likely motives for what they see as a contract killing. The Ockham’s Razor principle suggests the simplest explanation is usually the best.
That explanation is that the lawyer who fancied himself as a mob consigliore got in too deep to extricate himself.
His attempts to drift away quietly were interpreted as a hostile move — “proof” he’d leak to police or the media. That he was seen with reporters — and that police regularly met at his bar — would not go unnoticed by sharp eyes in Lygon St.
And other factors were in play. One is his acrimonious split from his wife, mother of his adult sons — never a great move in traditional Calabrian or Sicilian circles.
The other is that he’d made the tactical error of “winning” a brutal fistfight with a well-known Calabrian figure who confronted him at the bar about three years ago. Even if he had been able to stare down gossip that he was a leak, that was never going to end well.
One of the most respected criminal lawyers in the business, Peter Ward, sometimes quotes his old boss, the legendary “Mr Frank” Galbally, who told young lawyers never to socialise with their clients. The best idea was always to keep your desk between you and them.
Pino Acquaro didn’t realise the truth of that until too late.