Deadline: Super Bowl kick-off sparks white line fever for AFL greats
The pigskin had barely been thrown in anger when these two AFL greats started the party — none too subtly — in a toilet cubicle at a Melbourne Super Bowl party.
Police & Courts
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Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.
It’s always 11am somewhere
“I allus has wan at 11,” says the old bloke in the iconic CUB ad.
Also fond of making a start at that time are two former AFL greats, though they were on the nose beers, not the frothy version, at a Melbourne Super Bowl function.
The game started at 10.30am and by 11am, the pair had kicked off on the coke in a toilet cubicle at a popular venue.
A dunny roll holder with some leftover powder told the tale.
We won’t name them but they would not be the greatest surprise ever for those in the know about these things.
A gutful of Marrogi
Mining reader comments to help fill a column is lazy, shortcut journalism so let’s get on with it.
There was quite a deal of reaction from Herald Sun readers to Anthony Dowsley’s piece on jailed gangland figure George Marrogi and his plans for a hunger strike.
Marrogi wants new menu arrangements to cater for his recent conversion from Christianity to Judaism.
It’s fair to say readers couldn’t stomach his complaining.
Someone calling themself Sync appeared to sum up the views of many when he wrote:
Dear George,
Your current place of residence is a prison, not a hotel.
Greater variety of meal choices are available on the outside of the prison establishment.
Your lack of meal choices is one of the many consequences of your actions.
Sincerely,
The Law-abiding Community.
There was no comment from a Kaz of Iraq but we’re sure he’d be happy for Marrogi to continue dodging food until things reach their inevitable conclusion.
That’s because Kazem Hamad has for many years wished ill of Marrogi after the 2016 murder of his close mate Kadir Ors at Campbellfield Plaza shopping centre. A grudge that has lasted much longer than a lot of underworld players.
Crims have cops covered
Police trying to strike a better pay deal could not be blamed for envying the ever-inflating sums available to criminals.
The Herald Sun this week revealed the massive prices available in outlaw ranks just for giving the locations of murder targets marked for death.
That’s without even having to do the trigger-pulling, which should command considerably more kanga.
We don’t need Access Economics to tell us the offers of up to $5 million reputedly on offer to kill certain targets are a long way ahead of the $100,000 that Carl Williams was offering back in the early 2000s, even allowing for cost of living increases.
One detective lamented that those on the opposition side were doing better than a 4.5 per cent increase.
“We should have some of these blokes negotiate our EB,” another said.
A crime fighter colleague remarked that crooks definitely had better pay and conditions, though he conceded there were issues with longevity.
One of the latest crooks to be made redundant was taken out by a hit team who no doubt won themselves a tidy payday by actually pretending to be cops.
Whoever it was went to some trouble, getting a Volkswagen Tiguan of the type widely used by the force and then dressing it up with lights and sirens.
That’s how they managed to intercept wily career criminal Hawre Sherwani, a man with a swag of powerful enemies, and shoot him dead.
Given the previous failed attempt on Sherwani’s life last year, we can only guess at the kind of money that night’s work would have pulled in. Plenty.
Wrong arm of the law
Speaking of scoundrels who pass themselves off as police to commit badness, there’s a bit of it about.
Police in Gippsland have been appealing for witnesses to a disturbing incident that occurred on January 7 at approximately 10.30pm, a time when roads are pretty quiet in the country.
A white SUV, fitted with dash-mounted blue and red flashing lights, intercepted a motorist on the Princes Highway between Johnsonville and Nicholson, east of Bairnsdale.
Two males, clearly impersonating police officers, got out of the SUV, approached the motorist and took his driver’s licence before driving away towards Bairnsdale.
The driver of the SUV is described as approximately 180cm tall, of solid build with tanned skin. He was wearing an orange high-visibility vest and cap.
This reminds Deadline of similar events on a much different stretch of the same highway, the Geelong Rd near Little River, some years back. A man with tanned skin and dark hair and wearing an orange high-vis pullover used a fake dash-mounted blue and red light to pull over a motorist just after 9pm at night.
In either case, police got nowhere, it seems. But that wasn’t the case near Geelong recently, when the genuine cops grabbed some reptiles pretending to be police to shake down fellow crooks and steal cars, cash and cannabis.
One of those arrested, a Corio grandfather, copped his right whack after bunging on a most unseemly display in a Geelong court last week.
A jury found Scott Perry, his son Zach and others disguised themselves as police to rob them in a rip-off at a Whittington home.
Perry did not take the verdict with good grace.
The Geelong Advertiser reported the 49-year-old tipped a cup of water over a detective, accused the cop of setting him up and called him a c***, a short word often referred to in long form as “cattle truck” or “see you next Tuesday”.
Zach Perry has already been given a minimum two-year prison term and it’s likely his dad will have some time inside to ruminate on his manners after his bail was revoked.
You’d think a granddad would know better.
Gangsters and racing
A yearling named The Munster sold for mere $1000 on the Inglis digital online thoroughbred sale last week.
Most young horses are not officially named until they are broken in and tried but the owners of this one couldn’t help themselves. He’s by Brutal from Sophie’s Diamond and so they came up with the nickname of one of the most brutally efficient safe crackers (and possibly gem thief) in the business, the late Graham Kinniburgh.
The bargain buyer was one Josh (or was it ‘Joash’?) Cohen, a name familiar to some. At the same sale, a few lots down the list, was another youngster with a name that ties in beautifully with The Munster.
That was Unsolved, which is by Snitzel from Crack The Code.
Crack The Code is by the champion stallion I Am Invincible. Which is what the crook was who part-owned Snitzel (also a champion stallion) until he hit a massive hurdle.
His name is Damion Flower and he is doing a monster sentence for a monster coke importation scheme involving some of his former fellow baggage handlers at Sydney Airport.
For a while there, he was probably the wealthiest bloke behind bars, with his share of Snitzel’s stud fees worth a million bucks a year. He was, of course, well-known in Sydney racetrack and casino “society” before the big bust.
One of the better-named horses going around in recent times was the winner Gangitano, which is out of a mare named Colosimo and sired by Written By.
Vince Colosimo, of course, is the excellent actor who played Alfonse Gangitano in the Underbelly series as if born to the part. Deadline looks forward to seeing him back in front of the camera instead of back in front of the beak in court.
If the life and troubled times of TV host Andrew O’Keefe ever inspire another ‘Newsreader’ type drama, Vince would be the perfect choice.
Cops wedded to MAFS
Silly old Deadline thought Yammer was a handy racehorse which went around in the 1990s.
It turns out that Yammer is also the name of a kind of platform common in workplaces so staff can stay connected.
Victoria Police uses it to keep members across all sorts of business related to their important work of keeping our state safe.
A prime example is the VicPol MAFS Enthusiasts group which is very active on the force’s Yammer.
At last count, it numbered 115 members who exchange thoughts on Married At First Sight the minute each episode finishes.
Word is MAFS bad boy Tim would not want to be pulled over any time soon.
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