Lawyer X: Carl Williams complained to top judge about Gobbo’s conduct
Gangland boss warned of “grave concerns” about the lawyer later revealed to be a registered police informer, going so far as to demand Victoria’s legal ombudsman investigate.
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Gangland boss Carl Williams warned of “grave concerns” about the conduct of lawyer turned informer Nicola Gobbo in a letter to Supreme Court justice Betty King.
Wililams’ even demanded Victoria’s legal ombudsman investigate Gobbo’s behaviour as suspicions mounted.
Ex-wife Roberta also sent the complaint on his behalf — sparking alarm from Gobbo, unmasked as Lawyer X.
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The Sunday Herald Sun has obtained two letters written by Williams while in prison awaiting trial over a series of murders.
In one Williams warned the legal ombudsman he believed Gobbo, his one-time barrister and friend, “had acted improper, and unethical, in regards to a matter that involves myself”.
“I am currently about to face a murder trial in relation to the murder of Jason Moran and Pasquale Barbaro, my alleged co-accused in the matter were (redacted names),” he wrote.
Williams then named three former allies and co-accused for the murders of Moran and Barbaro, who cannot be named for legal reasons, who had “rolled” on Williams and became witnesses for the prosecution.
All three witnesses against Williams had been represented by Gobbo.
In 2015 she wrote to Victoria Police assistant commissioner Stephen Fontana about her contributions as an informer.
She was pivotal in bringing Williams down, she wrote, by breaking the criminal code of silence by convincing her then clients to inform.
“(It) created a precedent for others to follow and was the crack in the dam wall of silence that led to a flood,’’ Gobbo wrote.
The first Williams henchman she persuaded to talk was known as “The Driver’’, a convicted rapist and armed robber involved in the public execution of Jason Moran and Barbaro at an Auskick clinic.
Months later, he teamed up with the same hitman to murder hot dog vendor and drug dealer Michael Marshall.
Williams knew Gobbo had turned his former lackeys against him, but was ultimately powerless to persuade authorities to investigate her.
Williams even wrote that Justice Betty King had acknowledged Gobbo’s conflict of interest dilemma but that the barrister had continued to visit one of the co-accused in prison and phone him.
“I would like this matter investigated, and Nicola Gobbo stopped once and for all from have (sic) any further contact with (name redacted), ever by the way of telephone or visiting him, there is no need for her to have any contact with him, and this should be stopped immediately.”
In a letter to Justice King dated August 2, 2006, Williams wrote: “I raise this with you because it gives me grave concerns, as Nicola Gobbo has acted in the past for my family members & myself.”
Williams then states that his solicitor Zarah Garde-Wilson was taken off his phone and visit lists when a conflict of interest arose in the Moran/Barbaro case.
“I find this to be double standards of the highest level, there seems to be one rule for me and another rule for others.”
The letter was to be sent to then Barwon Prison general manager, Paul Spadano, then Law Institute president Chris Dale and then Director of Public Prosecutions Paul Coghlan QC.
It is not known if the letter received any of it’s intended recipients.
In a classified information report obtained by the Sunday Herald Sun, Gobbo becomes angry at a complaint made by Williams’ ex-wife Roberta sent on his behalf in 2008.
“Roberta has made a complaint to legal ombudsman that HS is conflicted re Faruk Orman,” the June 3, 2008, police entry states.
Gobbo’s police handler notes that the barrister has a “big whinge re a complaint today from Roberta”.
That complaint was made almost two years after Williams’ initial complaints to the legal ombudsman and to Justice King, who sentenced him to a minimum 35 years prison for four murders.
Roberta Williams is expected to make a submission to the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants about Gobbo’s double-dealing as Williams’ lawyer while she also worked for police as a registered police informer.
Some of her informing related to Williams.
The Commission resumes this week.