Ex-lawyer Pat Lennon eyes payday from sale of dark web trafficker’s beachside pad in Queensland

Pat Lennon, who has gone from representing the likes of Mick Gatto and Danny Nikolic to facing drugs charges, has been selling off millions of dollars in assets.

Controversial ex-lawyer Patrick Lennon seen outside court in Melbourne last week. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Exclusive: Embattled legal couple Pat and Jane Lennon are poised to sell a $450,000 beachside apartment in Queensland that belongs to a former client convicted of drug trafficking.

The property belongs to Silvie Horakova, who has had a bitter dispute with Mr Lennon over money she claims to have entrusted to the couple.

Putting the apartment on the market is among efforts by Mr Lennon, who is battling methamphetamine charges of his own, and his wife Jane Lennon to raise cash by selling assets.

Mr and Mrs Lennon were lawyers until they handed in their practising certificates in July amid an ongoing investigation by Victoria’s legal regulator, Legal Services Commissioner Fiona McLeay, who has also slapped Mr Lennon with disciplinary charges over a series of foul-mouthed texts he sent to a barrister while fuelled up with red wine.

Life’s a beach … the pad is in this block of serviced apartments on Charlton Esplanade in Hervey Bay. Supplied

An office in the Melbourne CBD Mr Lennon shared with his former law firm partner Nick Mazzeo sold for $3.5m earlier this year and the couple’s lavish Caulfield North home, which is owned by Mrs Lennon, is currently on the market with an asking price of $5.2m to $5.7m.

Mr Lennon, whose previous clients include underworld figure Mick Gatto and former champion jockey Danny Nikolic, is due back in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on October 6 after swearing at a News Corp photographer outside court during a committal hearing last week.

Pat and Jane Lennon did not respond to detailed questions.

The place he’s selling on Charlton Esplanade in Torquay, Qld. Picture: Supplied

The Queensland property that Mr Lennon is trying to sell, a two-bedroom apartment near the beach in Hervey Bay, belongs to Silvie Horakova, a Melbourne drug trafficker who last September was sentenced to seven years jail for selling more than 350g of ice and more than 200g of cocaine to hundreds of customers via notorious dark web marketplace Silk Road.

Horakova is the former girlfriend of failed tennis pro Dino Dattoli, who has gone from playing against Roger Federer to fighting dozens of charges over an alleged home invasion last year during which police claim he was armed with a handgun, garden shovel and flick knife.

She sent her customers drugs in prepaid Australia Post packages and received more than $200,000 worth of bitcoin in return, County Court judge Paul Lacava said when sentencing her.

Pat Lennon, centre, with client Danny Nikolic (left) and Nikolic’s girlfriend Tania Hyett (right). Picture: Ellen Smith

Property documents show she bought the Hervey Bay apartment in 2016 for $270,000 through her company, Silvie & Co.

It was subsequently mortgaged to Mrs Lennon’s high-interest loans company, Argyle Lending.

The mortgage, for $20,000, was registered on April 4, 2017, but when it was agreed to is unclear.

In late January last year Horakova emailed Mr Lennon saying she gave him $20,000 in cash “as a payment for the fake mortgage” over the property on January 23, 2017 and produced as evidence a handwritten receipt apparently signed by the then-lawyer.

She also claimed to have given Mr and Mrs Lennon $435,000 in cash for safekeeping, some of which was used to pay the bills of her criminal lawyer.

The email formed part of a series sent over a few days in which Horakova and Mr Lennon argued over who owed who what.

In a January 19, 2022 email a furious Horakova told Mr Lennon that “your repeated claim that I owe you money is false and has always been false”.

“It is in fact you that owes me money and a considerable amount if you take into account the interest I should have earned if you’d invested my money as you purported to at the time,” she said.

In dispute … A handwritten receipt for $20,000 received from Silvie Horakova that she claims was signed by former lawyer Pat Lennon, dated February 23, 2017. Source: Supplied.

In an email to one of Horakova’s relatives sent later the same day, Mr Lennon denied her assertions and complained about her “inflammatory and inappropriate” messages.

“Irrespective of Silvie’s email, we have advanced substantial further funds to her all of which are recorded and easily verifiable,” he said.

Real estate agent Tony Sprake, of LJ Hooker, currently has the Queensland unit listed as under offer. He declined to comment when asked who he was selling it for.

In addition to his drug charge, Mr Lennon also faces disciplinary proceedings before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal in which Ms McLeay accuses him of 17 counts of professional misconduct by sending a series of abusive and threatening messages to barrister James Podaridis.

Mr Lennon texted Mr Podiaridis, calling him a “fat, weak c—t” and asking him: “U at ur mums fat c–t?”, on the evening of July 10, 2020, during a court case in which the barrister was a potential witness.

“Don’t go anywhere fat boy,” he said.

“C u in 15 - be there… U r a dog.”

In a February 2 letter to Ms McLeay, Mr Lennon said he regretted sending the messages and had apologised to Mr Podiaridis, but denied they amounted to a threat or professional misconduct.

“I had been drinking red wine with and after dinner,” he said in the letter.

“Unusually for me, I had had much too much – this was a very stressful time for me generally.

“The wine disinhibited me and I acted in a foolish manner which only created extreme problems for me and for others.”