Deadline: Crime buzz with Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler

He’s the hot fugitive who won over love-struck ladies wanting to help him as he was hunted by cops. Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with the latest crime buzz.

The latest crime buzz with Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler.

Melbourne’s top crime writers Andrew Rule and Mark Buttler with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.

BAD BOY FOR LOVE

Back in January police released an image of a wanted man with a difference.

Instead of jailhouse facial tatts and scowl, Jess Mabilia sported the kind of brooding good looks that usually associated with actors and rock stars, a little more early Vince Colosimo than late Angry Anderson.

Jess Mabilia — 185cm tall with a medium build, blue eyes and dark hair and smouldering good looks.

One interested woman used social media to offer Jess M somewhere to hide out and another launched a Tinder manhunt for the most wanted 28-year-old since Jessie James.

Word now reaches Deadline that there was a bit of an earn to go along with the compliments.

Some of these smitten ladies actually parted with cash which they sent to help Mabilia get through troubled times as police sought him for contravening court orders.

Of course, Mabilia is a long way from being the first alleged bad boy to inspire such support.

Christine Evagora once used a shotgun to help her armed robber lover Brett Maston flee custody during a hospital visit. And another loyal young lady held onto her boyfriend Shane Cogley’s gun while they had a night out at Shooters nightspot on the Gold Coast.

Unfortunately for Cogley, she got upset and shot him late in the evening.

THE BUCKLEY SERIAL (CONT.)

Mr Raikkonen, son of former world champion sprinter Miss Andretti, ran seventh at Sandown last week. As a racer he is more go-kart than Ferrari, much like the great mare’s other failed foals, each named after a F1 racing car hero.

Miss Andretti, of course, is up to her hocks in the current brouhaha over horses bred by Sean “Waxworks” Buckley’s Ultra Thoroughbreds. So is Strikeline, mother of current champion sprinter Nature Strip. Mr Buckley, often described as “UltraTune bigwig”, has a few problems. Apart from running his diverse business empire, he has to field complaints and claims not only from disgruntled lovers/partners/wives but former employees.

Miss Andretti in action.

Racing stewards and the Australian Stud Book are sniffing around scurrilous allegations that Mr Raikkonen and his siblings might be the equine equivalent of test tube babies, transferred from curette to petri dish to surrogate mother as tiny embryos — a technique that is wonderful IVF science but, sadly, against the staid rules of thoroughbred racing.

So what does it matter if someone does a bit of slick test tube meets turkey baster work back on the farm? Truth is, if you breed them for racing, it’s like cheating at golf: whether you think the rules are silly or not, they are the rules.

Sean Buckley.

Buckley says the two Addictive Nature foals were just practice runs, bred artificially to help tune up the old mares’ reproductive cycles. As such, the foals are what he calls “polo ponies” and can never be registered to race.

Meanwhile, Ultra Thoroughbreds has managed to sell three yearlings out of six it originally offered at the record-breaking Melbourne Premier Yearling sales over the last three days.

Two were withdrawn, one sold after failing to meet the reserve and another is presumably still available for anyone who wants to make an offer.

The two that were sold in the ring, both sired by Mr Buckley’s Cox Plate winner Shamus Award, went to loyal trainers who prepare horses for Ultra. The Danny O’Brien stable bid a nice round $200,000 for one colt and Lloyd Kennewell $150,000 for another, which supports Shamus Award’s yearling prices nicely, thanks very much.

It is a racecourse certainty that both will race in Ultra’s distinctive green, black and white colours.

EASTWOOD TAKES GAMBLE

Raymond Chandler himself couldn’t have come up with a better name than “Ken Gamble” for a private eye but veteran Australian gumshoe Ken Gamble is the genuine article.

He has a long history of retrieving large amounts from rip-off merchants or those with long pockets and short arms and even shorter memories.

But court documents indicate that Mr Gamble has come off second best this time, at least temporarily, after doing cash recovery work for Bob Hawke lookalike Thomas Guy Eastwood, whose wavy grey mane is a dead ringer for Bob’s.

According to a writ, Mr Gamble was working to crack a huge Filipino-based boiler-room scam in 2018 when he discovered retired businessman Mr Eastwood had lost $154,000 to the shysters.

Thomas Eastwood with a portrait of a former Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

Mr Gamble, who had frozen an ANZ account linked to the Melbourne arm of the scam, says he contacted Mr Eastwood, who agreed to have the money recovered and pay a 40 per cent commission on that sum.

The PI, who runs IFW Global, said he delivered $540,000 on that basis for five clients but Mr Eastwood was the only one who did not honour the deal and pay up.

Mr Eastwood, of Batesford, did not respond to Deadline’s request for his side of the story. There is no suggestion he is related to Edwin John Eastwood, the serial kidnapper of schoolchildren in the 1970s.

But he might note it didn’t end well for Ted, who bit off more than he could chew.

THERE WAS A LIMERICK OR TWO

Our lawyers have banned publishing highly entertaining entries for our limerick competition, each starting with the line “There’s a (insert religion) hardliner called Tony”, based on the true case of a complex chap with a strong interest in transsexual sex workers.

For the record, the limerick result is a triple dead heat between two Pats (Herley and Groenhout) of no fixed addresses and one Matt from Ballarat. It is humbling to have such fine minds on board.

THE DIRT FILE

They’re a business family whose name is everywhere and also big churchgoers. So Deadline was surprised to learn that two of their number, a married couple, are big players on the swinging scene. They use assumed names and photos that would never pass muster in God’s house.

Don’t they remember what happened to Herman Rockefeller? Just asking.

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