How Lawyer X Nicola Gobbo was embroiled in gangland feud between Mokbel, Williams and Morans
Lawyer X Nicola Gobbo was intimately associated with gangland figures Carl Williams and Tony Mokbel, who regarded her as their go-to barrister. But one decision she made at the height of the underworld war saw the duo send a notorious hitman to threaten her.
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Nicola Gobbo’s decision to represent Carlton Crew member Lewis Moran at the height of the underworld war led her into anti-gangland detectives’ arms, after his enemies Carl Williams and Tony Mokbel got a hitman to threaten her.
A senior officer from the then newly formed Purana taskforce learned that Andrew “Benji’’ Veniamin had stalked Gobbo, known as Lawyer X, to her Port Melbourne apartment to scare her. The officer approached her a week later, telling her Veniamin was “dangerous” and that she needed to be careful.
Assistant Commissioner Neil Paterson has told the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants that the meeting between Gobbo and Purana taskforce detective Phil Swindells was integral to her prime informer years.
Mr Paterson’s statement to the commission reveals that in mid-2003 Gobbo had agreed to represent Moran in court. But her decision to represent an enemy was viewed by Mokbel and Williams as treachery.
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Gobbo was warned by both gangland bosses — who regarded her as their go-to-barrister and with whom she had intimate associations — to drop Moran. But she ignored them.
Days after her court appearance for Moran, Gobbo had claimed “she was threatened by a known associate of Carl Williams, Andrew Veniamin, in relation to her having appeared for Mr Moran”, Mr Paterson said.
But Gobbo pressed on, winning Moran bail and even arguing to vary his bail conditions. Gobbo was approached by Detective Senior Sergeant Phil Swindells on the steps of the court building after an appearance for Moran.
Mr Paterson’s statement, based on an internal investigation of Gobbo’s dealings with police, states that Gobbo says Sgt Swindells told her that police were aware of the Veniamin threat, and that he was a “dangerous individual’’ and she needed to be careful.
Then Sgt Swindells told her “she could contact police if she wanted to discuss the situation’’. Sgt Swindells did not disagree with Gobbo’s account, the statement says.
The interaction occurred just months after the Purana taskforce was formed on May 12, 2003.
Mr Paterson also stated Gobbo would again be threatened in late 2003 to make sure an associate of Williams and Mokbel did not co-operate with police after his arrest for murder.
Gobbo would begin working with the Purana taskforce from March 22, 2004, with regard to this client, known as Mister X, who was seeking a plea deal.
The Purana taskforce’s sergeant, Stuart Bateson, recorded on June 18, 2004 (a year after the initial threat), that Gobbo had first raised with him that she was concerned for her welfare.
“He explained that our door was open anytime,’’ Mr Paterson states.
The Morans were hated by Mokbel and particularly Williams.
Williams had ordered the hit killing of Lewis Moran’s son Jason, on June 21, 2003, at an Auskick clinic in Essendon in front of children, about the time of the threat and Swindells’ approach.
He would also have Jason’s father killed less than a year later — hitmen bursting into the Brunswick Club on March 31, 2004, and gunning him down.
Moran’s stepson, Mark, was the first Moran to be shot in the feud in 2000. Police charged Williams with the murder but withdrew it as part of a plea deal.
It is believed the Purana taskforce targeted lawyers acting for gangland figures in a bid to stem the bloodshed and jail the ringleaders.
In September 2005, Gobbo was registered as informer 3838, following a tumultuous period in her life.
The high-profile criminal barrister had been crucial in “rolling’’ her killer client Mister X, who provided statements to Purana investigators informing on her other clients, particularly Williams.
In 2003-2004, her actions surrounding the executions of police informers Terence and Christine Hodson, and her relationship with the suspected killer, policeman Paul Dale, came under scrutiny.
When Gobbo was recruited by the newly formed Source Development Unit — which recruited “high risk’’ informers — and was assigned handlers, the risks to her as a “human source’’ were not assessed. Issues surrounding the recruitment of a barrister, and her informing on clients, were only raised by her SDU handlers in 2008.
No legal advice was obtained regarding recruiting a lawyer as an informer until 2011 — two years after she was officially deregistered.
But when she was an active source, her proximity to organised criminals both on and off duty was a goldmine of information.
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Carl Williams hated the Moran family. He wanted everyone associated with them dead.
The vendetta went back to a western suburbs park, in 1999, when Jason Moran shot Williams in the stomach and his half-brother, Mark, urged Jason to shoot their drugs market competitor in the head.
“We want that bullet back, you f---ing dog,” one of the brothers said.
Williams conjured many plans for revenge: one of his henchmen described his “obsession”. One scheme involved a rocket launcher, another a hitman being disguised as a woman pushing a pram.
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Williams fired back bullets at the brothers. They were both killed, but it wasn’t enough.
He wanted Jason’s father, Lewis Moran, dead, too. The hatred was reciprocated.
Lewis had placed a $50,000 price on Williams’ head, which upset the intended target. Williams felt that his scalp was worth far more.
It is entirely conceivable that Nicola Gobbo got tangled in these family feuds, and that the nasty fallout compelled her to betray them and put them in jail.
She had represented Williams, his father George, as well as Tony Mokbel.
In mid-2003, she was asked to appear for Lewis Moran at a bail application.
Mokbel and Williams, she told police, ordered her not to accept the job.
She did, successfully – Moran got bail.
Later the same week, Gobbo said she received a visit from Andrew “Benji” Veniamin.
Again, it is entirely conceivable that Veniamin, a professional hitman, threatened Gobbo.
It gels with confidential police reports from several years later.
Gobbo had a dinner with Mick Gatto, who told her that Veniamin had been sent to kill her.
Nevertheless, she appeared again for Moran the following week.
On the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court steps, she was approached by Detective Senior Sergeant Phillip Swindells. He had helped establish the anti-gangland Purana taskforce only a month or two earlier.
Swindells told Gobbo that she needed to be careful. Veniamin was a “dangerous individual”.
Besides being Melbourne’s busiest hitman, Veniamin’s reasoning was jumbled at the time by his use of his bosses’ product.
Within a few months, Gobbo was facing more threats.
The driver in the killing of Jason Moran and another killing in South Yarra had been arrested; both were hits organised by Williams. Gobbo was the driver’s lawyer.
A creep and a convicted rapist, he would come to be known as Mr X.
She told police that she received “specific threats” from both Williams and Mokbel to ensure that her client did not co-operate with police.
She spoke of her fears at the time in a letter to police command in 2015.
She communicated with Detective Sergeant Stuart Bateson from early 2004, “at a time when the refusal to assist police by anyone involved or with any knowledge was frustrating investigators”.
“What lead (sic) me to do that was my own frustration with the way in which certain criminals (Carl Williams) were seeking to control what suspects and witnesses could and could not do or say to Police via solicitors who were not in my view, acting in the best interests of their clients because of the undue influence and control of “heavies” such as Williams,” Gobbo wrote.
“I provided Bateson with information that was of value to investigators in the months prior to suffering a stroke in late July 2004 and again afterwards.”
She did more than that.
Her reckless zeal was unchecked; some might call it bravery.
Gobbo encouraged the driver to roll on Williams, which led to Williams being convicted of two of four murders.
Gobbo took pride in her “pivotal role”. The driver’s decision to co-operate was a precedent for others to follow, “the crack in the damn (sic) wall of silence that lead (sic) to a flood”.
There is, of course, a competing theory; there usually is with the motivations of Gobbo’s informing.
This theory goes that police implicated her as a person of interest in the killings of Terence and Christine Hodson in May, 2004.
She had represented Terry Hodson, a police informer who conducted a burglary with his police handler.
At the same time, she socialised with Paul Dale, liaised between Dale and Carl Williams, and was taped telling Tony Mokbel that a friend “Pauline” (which police took to mean Dale) had documents he might like to see.
Dale became the chief suspect in the killings, and Gobbo’s activities were explored by the Office of Police Integrity at the time.
It is believed that Tony Fitzgerald QC, heading an investigation into a stolen informer file on Terry Hodson, suggested she rethink her initial evidence to his inquiry.
Did police pressure her to inform because she was to be treated a Hodson killings suspect?
The notion gained a foothold at the royal commission on Thursday, when Assistant Commissioner Neil Paterson, in offering a 71-page chronology of Gobbo’s police informing, was asked about overlooking the Hodson deaths in his timeline.
Williams’ threats may well have triggered reactions from Gobbo that helped place him in jail for the rest of his life.
After all, she was a scorpion by instinct, hidden in plain sight, easy to underestimate and possessed of a wicked sting.
But nothing is neat with Gobbo.
At the end of 2003, amid the threats, she was hosting the Crown Casino christening of Williams’ daughter, Dhakota.
Here she was, pictured with a beaming Williams and Veniamin. She was said to snort cocaine there with the “big boys”.
There’s also a recorded phone call of Williams, late that same year, which may say something about his thinking at the time.
He didn’t have a clue about Gobbo’s betrayal.
“Get Nicola to do it,” he told his wife Roberta. “She always does what we tell her.”