Lawyer X’s ‘more than professional relationship’ with suspected hitman
Anti-gangland detectives wanted surveillance on Nicola Gobbo days after the brutal 2003 hit on Jason Moran at an Auskick clinic, believing she had a “more than professional relationship” with the suspected hitman.
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Anti-gangland detectives wanted surveillance on Lawyer X days after the brutal 2003 hit on Jason Moran and Pasquale Barbaro at an Auskick clinic.
A Purana Taskforce request for surveillance of gangland barrister Nicola Gobbo said she had a “more than professional relationship” with the suspected hitman.
At the time Purana detectives believed Gobbo had acted as a go-between for members of Carl Williams and Tony Mokbel’s drug dealing syndicates.
The Lawyer X Royal Commission heard the surveillance request had said that Gobbo was more than a lawyer but an active participant in the drug dealing syndicates.
“She’s suspected of assisting Mokbel and (the hitman) in their drug trafficking activities and of providing these persons with information about the activities of other criminals in relation to the murders of Michael Marshall, Jason Moran and Nik Radev.”
Williams said his alibi for the Barbaro and Moran killings was that he was getting weight loss advice at a clinic with the hitman.
Williams said he only learnt of the Cross Keys Reserve murders, which he would later plead guilty to ordering, when Gobbo called him hours afterwards.
The June 21, 2003 hit shocked Melbourne as children playing Auskick had witnessed the slayings.
It was also a breach of the underworld code to expose children to such a violent scene.
Purana Taskforce detective Peter Kennedy requested surveillance on Gobbo on July 2 due to her “much more than professional relationship”with Mokbel and one of the men who would plead guilty to the hit.
It said the “target”, Gobbo, would spend her leisure time at cafes and gyms with Mokbel and the hitman “and arranges to meet at times of developments in homicide and drug squad investigations.”
It added Gobbo’s last charge was in 1993 for possessing methamphetamines but said she was a “significant supplier of drugs at Melbourne University”.
In 1995, Gobbo was registered as an informer and provided information against her speed dealer boyfriend Brian Wilson.
In 2005 Gobbo was again registered as an informer and would provide more than 5500 pieces of information against Mokbel, the gangland hitman and others in Melbourne’s underworld.
Counsel assisting the Royal Commission Megan Tittensor said that Gobbo provided legal advice to the Auskick hitman in 2006 — when she was a registered police informer.
MORE LAWYER X:
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LAWYER X ‘HURT OUR HODSON MURDERS PROBE’
The hitman gave a series of statements implicating Carl Williams in the murder of Jason Moran.
Giving evidence to the Royal Commission Purana Taskforce head Jim O’Brien was taken to his diary entries where he spoke to the hitman about his legal representation.
He said at the time he knew that Gobbo was working as a police double-agent.
Gobbo’s handlers recorded that the hitman had told her that if Williams was to get a life sentence it was OK “to lag him into one more murder” so he could get a discount.