The prison ambushes that prove reputation means little on inside
No one is completely safe in prison, as the brutal ambush on Tony Mokbel showed. The underworld heavyweight is just one of many to find that a reputation and connections can mean little on the inside.
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No one is completely safe in prison, as the brutal ambush on Tony Mokbel proved.
Mokbel is an underworld heavyweight but he didn’t stand a chance when two thugs pounced in February in an attack which went close to having fatal consequences.
He is just one of many to find that a reputation and connections can’t always keep you safe on the inside.
The Barbecue King strikes
Barry Quinn was a double-murderer whose big mouth would ultimately be his undoing inside Pentridge Prison.
He should have known better than to taunt fellow killer Alex Tsakmakis — a man with a foul temper and a violent streak — about anything.
But when he ragged him about the rape of his girlfriend in 1984, Tsakmakis got square in the most brutal fashion.
The next day, as they watched TV soap The Restless Years, he doused Quinn with highly flammable model glue and flicked lit matches at him until he burst into flames.
Quinn ran around the area in agony until guards — initially impeded by Tsakmakis — were able to extinguish the flames.
He suffered burns to 85 per cent of his body but, in line with the inflexible prison code of silence, refused to say who did the damage before dying.
Tsakmakis was later grimly nicknamed the Barbecue King.
A newspaper death notice later appeared which read: “Barry — we always stuck together — Alex” in a likely reference to the glue.
It remains unclear whether it was lodged by Tsakmakis or a detective with a macabre sense of humour.
Tsakmakis gets his own
Alex Tsakmakis might have thought himself the king of the Pentridge jungle after killing Quinn.
If he did, it was a fatal mistake.
Tsakmakis was initially separated from other inmates but later moved back into the system’s mainstream.
His guard was well and truly down when Russell St bomber Craig Minogue cut his lunch on July 22, 1988.
Minogue made his move as Tsakmakis brought out the mid-day meals to a group of prisoners.
Wielding a pillow case packed with 5kg gymnasium weights, the hulking killer let loose, striking the victim up to seven times.
Tsakmakis’s skull was fractured and the homicide squad was called in the belief he had died at the scene.
But a doctor later found the faintest of pulses and he was put on life support, only to die six days later.
Minogue would argue in court that he killed Tsakmakis in self-defence but was ultimately convicted.
Justice Pentridge H Division style
Mark Brandon Read was a good mate of Minogue’s who almost lost his life to the same kind of brutality.
Read became a household name and the subject of books and films, simply under the moniker “Chopper”, but he almost never made it to infamy.
In 1979, a young Read was one of the most feared inmates in the prison system.
It was in that year that ruthless Gregory Brazel took a falling out in their friendship to the nth degree, Pentridge H Division-style.
Brazel, nicknamed Bluey because of his red hair, sliced Read’s stomach open with makeshift knife.
It was said that Read’s intestines tumbled from his body “like sausages”.
Underworld legend has it that, a day after the attack, Read got out of his hospital bed and started doing push-ups, tearing his new stitches.
The new fitness regimen was, apparently, in preparation for a return encounter with the crafty Brazel.
Read eventually made it back to something resembling full health and died in 2013, aged 58.
The new breed who didn’t care about reps
Greg Brazel had worked his way through much of the Crimes Act before he got on the end of a brutal jailhouse beating
A triple killer, he had also been convicted of arson, armed robbery, bribery and contempt of court, and that was only a sample of the stuff police had been able to prove.
But a new generation of young prison inmates didn’t care much for reputations.
One of them was Matthew Charles Johnson, arguably the most dangerous of a violent group of men who became upset after believing Brazel had been talking to authorities in 1998.
Johnson and others used a rowing machine and a chair to smash through a huge window and get to Brazel in an exercise yard where he had been placed for his own safety.
Weapons used in the ensuing attack included a sandwich-maker, an exercise bike seat and a vacuum cleaner pole.
In an extraordinary exercising of the prisoner code of silence, Brazel did not even call for help during the onslaught.
He suffered six facial fractures and eye damage as the blows rained down.
But, in line with jailbird policy, Brazel said: “F..k your first aid,” to the first prison guard on the scene.
Carl’s big mouth gets him killed
Carl Williams was to become the next victim of Johnson in a fatal assault that had enormous ramifications.
In the months before April 19, 2010, it had become apparent Williams was co-operating with authorities.
On that day, Johnson turned on Williams in Barwon Prison’s Acacia unit.
As his prey sat reading the newspaper, Johnson moved in from behind and bludgeoned the drug boss with the stem of an exercise bicycle.
Williams suffered the most horrific head injuries as the hulking killer laid into him.
Johnson — who ran the infamous Prisoners of War gang — was to later argue he acted in self-defence and just got in first before Williams had him killed.
But the popular theory is that he acted on the behest of others with a lot to lose.
It was known that Williams had been dealing with detectives investigating former drug squad detective Paul Dale over the murders of police informer Terry Hodson and his wife Christine.
But other serious criminals were concerned about what else he might say to investigators about some long-lost matters, including the May, 2000, murder of Richard Mladenich at St Kilda’s Esquire Motel.
That case continues to generate police interest, the Herald Sun revealing recently that Purana taskforce detectives were conducting a major review.
Sneak attack on Tommy Gun
Tommy Ivanovic lived with Williams inside Acacia and was right there when Johnson struck.
Police have always been curious about what he knew about the death of Williams and whether he could help their investigations.
Seven years later, the well-connected Ivanovic found himself on the wrong end of jailhouse savagery, again in Barwon.
He was in an exercise area in a mainstream unit when another inmate let loose with a sneak attack which could have killed the man known as “Tommy Gun.”
Ivanovic was rushed to hospital under tight security and survived his injuries.
As with many prison attacks, the details and possible motives were murky.
But one of the strongest theories was that it was in revenge for a stabbing inflicted on a former ally three years earlier.
Ivanovic was last year released from jail for the 2002 murder of motorcyclist Ivan Conabere at Brunswick West.
Prisoners of War launch frenzied attack
Gavin Preston was once a good mate of Ivanovic in the small world that is Victoria’s prison system.
A feared underworld figure and jailhouse enforcer, his reputation for violence is just about as bad as anyone’s.
But mix some trust and the safety of numbers and not even the likes of Preston are safe from a life-threatening onslaught.
In 2014, Preston and a group of five men swapped greetings, hugged and shook hands in the Eucalypt unit at Barwon.
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They sat at a table and chewed the fat before another man joined and things suddenly changed.
Moments later, Preston was struck from behind and what was described as a “frenzied” attack was unleashed.
Shivs spikes and blades were wielded by members of the notorious Prisoners of War group before prison officers stepped in.
When it was over, Preston was left with nine stab wounds and severe facial lacerations.
A court later heard that, despite being totally outnumbered, he still managed to kick one of his assailants in the face.
Preston is doing time for defensive homicide over the death of Adam Khoury.
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