Deadline: How sneaky texts botched mafioso’s boob job plan
A Melbourne mafioso’s plan to pay for breast enhancement surgery for a lady friend blew up in his face.
Police & Courts
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Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with the latest scallywag scuttlebutt.
Phones and phoney fronts
A boob job and some indiscreet texts appear to have landed a Melbourne Mafia tough guy in the proverbial.
Our sources say his problems started when he funded some breast enhancement work for a close lady friend a while back.
It’s alleged that while she was on the operating table he was sending texts to another woman interstate.
After recovering from her successful surgery, the patient found those messages and was, not surprisingly, most displeased.
Our man, from one of Australia’s more noted Italian organised crime families, was disappointed when she decided to head north and flew up to talk her around using his Latin charms.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of cash left over from the plastic surgery and it set off some kind of airport scanner which, in turn, alerted authorities that Romeo was in breach of some bail conditions.
He hasn’t made it back to Melbourne yet.
Of course, gangland types have long helped keep plastic surgeons and celebrity dentists in the Maserati-style to which they are accustomed.
Many years ago, police listened in as a drug boss talked to his wife about some augmentation he’d paid for.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to be in town because of an onerous interstate business trip with a mate and two guests from the world of adult entertainment.
Not a clever dick
Bailey Devlin is an alleged hoon driver and a convicted braggart.
Devlin was arrested last week and a bunch of his cars seized as part of a major investigation by the Dandenong high risk driving unit.
A Facebook account belonging to the 22-year-old from Rowville carries his name followed by the words “Dixie Normous” in brackets.
A Victoria Police press release gave no indication of the force’s views on the size of Mr Devlin’s appendages.
Among his alleged offences is some flamboyant hooning in a kind of uber-bogan gender reveal.
In the “ceremony”, which he helpfully filmed and posted online, our hero apparently applied some kind of colouring powder to his tyres before smoking things up.
The smoke came up blue, which apparently means the young leadfoot is having a baby son.
Meanwhile, dad will be facing some tricky times in court after being hit with a mountain of charges.
Little Tommy, where are you?
“Little Tommy” Ivanovic, you have mail. So if you’re out there, drop us a line so we can relay a message from one of your old workmates at Sweetwater restaurant in Flinders Lane.
Your old workmate goes by “M. Mouse”, which might not be his real name but we’re guessing you knew him as “Mick”.
In recent correspondence he writes: “If you happen to come across him in your travels say hi for me and pass on my email address. We used to bust our guts at Sweetwater restaurant before he became who he is now. He was likeable but … often used to say there’s easier ways of making money. I now know what he meant …”
By way of background, unlike a lot of modern crooks, “Little Tommy” Ivanovic wasn’t a bikie — and not a bikie fan. He was a cook with bad habits who kept some bad company outside work hours.
In 2002, two motorcyclists made the mistake of following him to his house in Cornwall St, West Brunswick, in an incident that is a definitive example of how road rage goes pear shaped.
Bikie one, Ivan Conabere, jumped off his motorcycle and knocked the diminutive Ivanovic to the ground, obviously not realising he was armed.
B2, Conabere’s friend John Hair, heard two shots. He rushed over the road to help and Ivanovic told him: “He had me by the throat, what do you expect me to do?”
To which the shocked Hair blurted, “Not shoot him!”
Unfortunately for Ivanovic, the shooting was filmed by his own home security camera and later used in evidence against him.
Angels of mercy
Deadline would like to take credit for this nugget but our colleague Craig Dunlop is the one with a keen eye for detail.
Dunlop has impeccable contacts who have been looking into the business affairs of some of Melbourne’s outlaw motorcycle brethren and it so happens they had a squiz at the Hells Angels.
They found that one of a web of the companies which make up the outlaw gang’s corporate structure has its place of business listed (albeit with a “typo” mistake) as a Mercy Health mental health and drug rehabilitation facility in Deer Park.
Only the Good Lord knows why the Angels chose a Christian healthcare charity, of all places, as an apparent phoney address to put on their corporate filings.
Maybe it’s their idea of a joke. But law-abiding taxpayers shouldn’t worry that the criminal “one percenters” will get away with it.
If ASIC gets wind of the dastardly incorrect address, the Angels might face a whopping $362 fine for their sins. They must be shivering.
Late bloomer waters runs deep
It’s a great country for young people who work hard to improve themselves. Look at David “Docket” Waters, a postal worker’s son who became a police cadet in the mid-1970s, kicking off a colourful and diverse career that’s not over yet.
The calendar says Waters is now hitting retirement age but you can bet he won’t be haunting the local bowling green for a while.
Fact is, this late blooming boomer is just starting out as a qualified lawyer and might well assist people seeking help from Bernie “The Attorney” Balmer — another self-improver who moved up from amateur boxing to belting paedophile teachers at Assumption College Kilmore to being a clerk of courts then one of the better-known criminal lawyers in the land.
Waters having been a loyal Balmer client over the years, notably when accused of skullduggery with other ex-cops during the Chartres-Abbott “vampire gigolo” murder trial, it was only natural that he sought work experience with the trusted firm when he finished legal studies recently.
No item about Waters would be complete without a gratuitous reference explaining his nickname, something that fascinated a royal commission investigating police corruption in Western Australian in 2002.
Along the way to probing Waters about how and why he knew identities such as Mick Gatto, alleged Perth crime figure John Kizon and disgraced Sydney detective Roger Rogerson, legal eagles couldn’t help cross-examining him about his nickname.
To which question he replied — under oath, so it must be true:
“I was charged by the homicide squad in 1982 as a 22-year-old policeman. I was involved with a girlfriend and another policeman; we were off duty and we were attacked by 15 people in Lygon Street, Carlton, and, as a result, a fellow was stabbed. I was charged by the homicide squad and subsequently I spent two nights in Pentridge Prison on remand, and I was acquitted before a jury at the County Court in Melbourne.”
A prosecutor innocently asked, as if he didn’t know, “And what’s the significance of ‘Docket’?”
Waters: “In Melbourne, people who’ve got records are called ‘dockets’, because before they had computers they used to have pieces of paper called docket sheets.”
Prosecutor: “So it was just the sick sense of humour back when?”
Waters, the future lawyer, rightly pointed out that his younger self had been acquitted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and so was able to continue his incident-packed career.
His time with Victoria Police ended in 2002 when he took two years sick leave to face the said royal commission before moving into the earthmoving business. A man of many parts.
Blue bagger hits the road
Here’s a recipe for road rage.
One of this column’s sharpest spies spotted this piece of mobile messaging while crossing the West Gate Bridge on Sunday morning.
The Collingwood fan left other motorists in no doubt where his loyalties lie with a huge “Carlton Scum” placard attached to the rear of his Toyota four-wheel-drive.
It may have been wise to pack it up before the return trip, given Blues fans feeling the pain after a galling loss to their hated enemy that knocked them out of the finals by a kick.