Suspected mafia figure and drug dealer Rocco Arico was a ‘good bloke’, says former Essendon great
AN ESSENDON premiership player has given character evidence for drug dealer and suspected Calabrian mafia crime lord Rocco Arico.
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SUSPECTED Calabrian Mafia crime lord Rocco Arico desperately tried to become an Australian citizen to avoid being sent back to his motherland, a court has heard.
But the alleged gangster’s application was knocked back and he will now almost certainly be deported back to Italy when he gets out of jail.
A jury found Arico guilty of extortion, intentionally causing injury and trafficking methylamphetamine last year.
Then another jury found him guilty of possessing a gun and possessing a drug of dependence following a separate trial.
In a bizarre display, former Essendon premiership player — and Arico’s next door neighbour — Alec Epis took the stand today to declare Arico was a “good bloke”.
Mr Epis, a dual premiership player with the Bombers in the 1960s, played 180 games and served as a board member at the club as well as a chairman of selectors. He is a member of the club’s Hall of Fame.
“I found him to be a decent person,” he said of Arico.
But Judge Chettle suggested Arico was anything but.
“He’s an active and ongoing drug dealer and an extortionist,” he said.
Mr Epis said he became friends with Arico while he renovated his Moonee Ponds home.
The former VFL great said Arico was determined to have the home ready before Christmas, otherwise his wife would kill him.
Mr Epis said he joked with Arico that “he was the boss”, but Arico suggested otherwise.
“He was a good bloke as far as I was concerned,” he said.
He said Arico agreed to redo his driveway for him, but only after her was granted the proper council approvals.
Arico is expected to spend years behind bars before being deported back to the land he left as an infant.
His barrister Bruce Walmsley, QC, said Arico was “worried to death” about being sent packing.
The 38-year old was jailed last November after a former minion turned police rat and dobbed him in for threatening to kill him and his family.
During a pre-sentence plea hearing today, the County Court heard an unrepentant Arico maintained his innocence.
Arico was brought undone after former drug dealing mate Arthur Vouthas told police Arico had embarked on a campaign of terror against himself and his family after he bungled a drug deal.
The dealer told police he received $350,000 worth of cocaine from Arico in 2010 but had it ripped-off by notorious bikie Toby Mitchell in a deal-gone-wrong.
When he falsely claimed he was behind the 2011 shooting of Mitchell outside Doherty’s Gym, Arico demanded the dealer pay him $110,000.
Phone taps later caught the notorious criminal threaten to kill the dealer’s brother-in-law, hurt his wife and shoot-up his home.
Mr Walmsley tried to convince Judge Geoffrey Chettle that his client was a hard working and honest citizen who had “went off the rails”.
Unlike the two juries who convicted Arico, Judge Chettle was aware of Arico’s shocking criminal past, which includes a nine-year sentence over the 2001 road-rage shooting of a stranger.
He said Mr Walmsley’s plea bordered on being farcical.
“I’m still getting the defence spin on the facts, which I don’t accept … I don’t accept your factual spin,” he said.
“Your opening gambit is he maintains his innocence.”
Judge Chettle compared Arico’s relationship with Vouthas to those in a popular television show about gangsters.
“The whole relationship is like an episode of The Sopranos,” he said. “It’s clear who runs the show and it is your client.”
Arico will learn his fate on Friday.