Mick Gatto penned jailhouse letter to Mario Condello hours after shooting hitman dead
IN the hours after he shot a man dead, Melbourne identity Mick Gatto penned a three-page letter from his cell at Port Phillip Prison’s high-security Charlotte Unit, urging a friend to take care of his family. READ THE LETTER
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MELBOURNE identity Domenic Gatto has known his fair share of hardship, and the pain of losing a child shatters even the hardest of men.
The former boxing champ’s son Justin died this week aged just 34, the second son Mr Gatto has heartbreakingly lost.
But “Mick” Gatto has often been there for others when tragedy has struck, and, as the most prominent survivor of Melbourne’s gangland wars, has seen several of his closest friends murdered: Lewis Moran, Graham Kinniburgh, Mario Condello.
GATTO AND WILLIAMS’ PEACE CONFERENCE
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A rare peek inside Mr Gatto’s world in the hours after he shot a man dead was revealed in a three-page letter he penned to Condello from his cell at Port Phillip Prison’s high-security Charlotte Unit.
“I tell you what Mario, it’s changed a lot since the days of old,’’ he writes on March 24, 2004, of his treatment in jail after being arrested for the murder of Andrew “Benji’’ Veniamin at a Carlton restaurant.
His high-profile status was met with extra attention from prison guards ferrying him from jail to jail.
But his main concern was always for his family.
SCROLL DOWN TO READ LETTER IN FULL
“I feel a bit like Hannibal Lecter (sic), everywhere I go you have to be cuffed and stripped’’, he wrote.
“I don’t know how long they intend to keep me here in this area, but I promise you whatever they throw at me I will cop. I can have one box visit a week for half an hour.
“It’s going to be hard especially with the kids, the young ones more so, anyway I don’t think I will let them see me this way. It could have lasting effects so I guess I will just write to them.
“Mario, if you could please keep in constant touch with my family and make sure you speak to Damien and Justin every now and then,’’ he wrote before Condello too would meet a bullet in 2006.
“I am good as gold Mario, I can’t believe what has happened to me the last couple of days, but so be it.
“I can’t believe for a bloke that prides himself on not getting involved in all the bulls …, I can’t believe how trouble finds me.’’
Mr Gatto told police after the shooting that he was forced to shoot Veniamin, who was aligned with drug boss Carl Williams during the underworld conflict, when the younger man pulled a gun on him. A jury would later acquit him of Veniamin’s murder after he gave evidence that he acted in self-defence.
“I can’t believe that little maggot tried to kill me, anyway he is in his place,’’ Mr Gatto wrote.
“Mario give the old bloke my regards and all our team — tell them I am going alright and I will be in touch in the near future.
“Keep your eyes wide opened, you can’t trust any of these rats. I would hate to see anything happen to any of ours.’’
Who is Mick Gatto?
Mick Gatto was an amateur boxer during the 1980s but became a household name in Melbourne during the city’s gangland wars.
He was alleged to have been a member of the Carlton Crew, which included late crime figures Lewis, Jason and Mark Moran, Graham Kinniburgh, Mario Condello and Alphonse Gangitano — all murdered during the tit-for-tat killings.
In 2004, he was charged with murdering Carl Williams’ hitman, Andrew Veniamin, during an argument at a Carlton restaurant.
Mr Gatto claimed he had acted in self defence when Veniamin pulled a gun, turning the weapon around during a scuffle and twice shooting the hitman.
Mr Gatto was held in custody for 18 months before he was found not guilty at trial.
Since the verdict, Mr Gatto has returned to his business interests: mediation, debt collecting and part-time boxing promoter.
Tragedy strikes the Gattos
The death of his youngest son, Justin early on Tuesday morning, has been met with grief and disbelief.
Police, lawyers, underworld figures and others who have come into Mr Gatto’s orbit, sent their deepest condolences
In his book, I Mick Gatto, the Carlton identity wrote that his one true weakness was when his children were sick.
One of Mr Gatto’s most personal accounts in the book is about the death of his first child, Michael, who passed away two days after he was born in February, 1979.
He and his wife, Cheryle, were devastated.
Justin, their youngest son, at 34, had been struggling with personal issues for some time and had made efforts to turn his life around.
Mr Gatto has a strong stance on family and for the most part, has largely kept them out of the public eye.
In June, 1980, when his second son, Damien, was born, Mr Gatto was “deeply worried he would die’’.
“And I’ve been that way with all of them, because the only thing in life that really bothers me — and I can handle anything — is when my kids are sick. That’s the time I go to water,’’ he wrote in his book.
As a parent, Mr Gatto endured Damien and his daughter, Sarah, suffer from febrile convulsions.
There would be multiple visits to the Royal Children’s Hospital, and Gatto will forever be grateful for the care provided,
Justin, born in 1985, was two months premature, “a tiny little thing’’, Mr Gatto would quip.
“They didn’t give him much chance of surviving, but he pulled through,’’ he wrote.
Justin was at a city apartment on Spencer St believed to be owned by the Gattos before his death.
It is also believed that the Gattos had also been at the apartment.
Paramedics who arrived at the scene made desperate attempts to save his life, but he succumbed to his injuries before he could be taken to hospital.
The Gatto family has asked for privacy while they grieve.
