Face-busting weapon found in Love Machine employee’s house

A crowd controller working at Love Machine nightclub the night of a fatal double shooting has been busted with an illegal weapon but managed to avoid a conviction.

Police carried out a series of raids targeting Joseph Hosri and others last year. Picture: AAP

A crowd controller who was working at Love Machine nightclub on the night of a double-fatal gun attack has won his fight to overturn a weapons conviction.

The Sunday Herald Sun understands knuckledusters were found in Joseph Hosri’s home during a series of police raids targeting organised crime by the Mongols bikie gang and others last year.

The anti-bikie Echo taskforce executed warrants across Melbourne, seizing drugs, guns and cash.

Hosri, 28, had been convicted in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in June this year of possessing the illegal face-busting weapon.

But Hosri, 28, appealed to the County Court last month where the conviction for possessing a prohibited weapon was struck out.

He was instead ordered to pay a $250 fine.

Joseph Hosri was working the door at the Love Machine the night there was a fatal shooting. Picture: AAP

Hosri — an associate of accused crime boss Mohammed Oueida — has made headlines on more than one occasion since he survived the Love Machine shooting on April 14, 2019.

Later that year, gangland detectives forced him before court to answer questions about the shooting in which fellow crowd controller Aaron Osmani and patron Richard Arow were shot dead.

Hosri worked the Prahran club’s door, telling the court he was tasked with making sure “big tattooed, scary people” didn’t enter the club.

But his recollections in court were hazy, including on questions of whether Sabrine Maghnie, the daughter of gangland figure Nabil Maghnie, had been banned from the club weeks earlier.

He also could not recall a man being ejected hours before Love Machine was sprayed with bullets.

“If you want to know the truth about that night, I only recall a friend dying in my hands,” Mr Hosri told the court, referring to Mr Osmani.

Hosri is not accused of any involvement in the shooting but police had hoped he could shed light on why things turned deadly.

Jacob Elliott and Allan Fares have been charged with two counts of murder and three of attempted murder over the Love Machine violence.

Mr Elliott is the son of Nabil Maghnie, who was shot dead in January 2020.

Earlier this year, a home in the northern suburbs connected with Hosri was peppered with high-powered gunfire.

Police later said the attack was not random.

Hosri has in the past been associated with members of outlaw motorcycle gangs and other organised crime figures.

One former acquaintance is Brendan Berichon.

Berichon was in the media spotlight in 1997 when he helped Brendan Abbott, the infamous Postcard Bandit, escape from a Brisbane prison.

They would later flee to Melbourne where Berichon shot two police officers after they confronted him at Box Hill.

The Sunday Herald Sun has been told Hosri also attracted organised crime detectives’ scrutiny last year in the period after accused gangland figure Mohammed Oueida was arrested in West Australia and hit with high-level drug trafficking charges.

Oueida was at the time driving a Hummer motor vehicle believed to belong to Hosri.