Lambo Guy’s hearing adjourned after lawyer blasts cops, prosecution
Both prosecution and police copped a fierce spray from Portelli’s lawyer, while fans of the billionaire searched for an ‘exclusive surprise’ hidden outside the courthouse.
Billionaire Adrian Portelli’s court battle against hooning charges has been delayed after his lawyer accused the prosecution of attempting to introduce “surprise evidence” at the last minute.
The 35-year-old is facing charges of careless driving, failing to have proper control of a vehicle, and driving in a manner causing a vehicle to lose traction after a Highway Patrol intercept in December 2020.
Police allege Mr Portelli was spotted doing “doughnuts” through a roundabout in his partner’s Mercedes C63 in Diggers Rest on a wet and rainy day.
Over two days, the entrepreneur’s lawyer Penny Marcou took a blowtorch to leading senior constable Glenn Hutton’s account of the traffic stop, accusing him of failing to investigate the alleged offence adequately and of giving conflicting accounts of what happened.
“The explanation in your first statement from three years ago is different to your explanation yesterday … you’re either reconstructing or your memory is flawed”, Ms Marcou said on Tuesday.
“I may have worded it slightly differently, but I don’t agree it’s a different explanation,” Constable Hutton retorted.
A day earlier she alleged in court that Constable Hutton only impounded her client’s Mercedes after realising “he had multiple homes and a nice car” – an allegation he denied emphatically.
“No, I didn’t know who your client was at the time,” the officer said.
Ms Marcou also claimed Constable Hutton’s integrity had been “fractured” by his failure to collect statements from any eye witnesses, take a photo of the car’s traction control button, or investigate its computer system.
“So what we are left with again is a void of evidence due to your lack of investigation,” she said.
Following her interrogation, Ms Marcou proceeded to then derail prosecutor Alex Turner’s own examination of the same witness.
After objecting six times to Mr Turner’s line of questioning, Ms Marcou told the magistrate she was ‘gobsmacked’ by his attempt to have the officer’s bodyworn camera footage “elevated”.
On Monday, Mr Turner said the prosecution would rely on comments allegedly made by Mr Portelli during the intercept as an “implied admission” of guilt.
“In 28 years of the bar, I have never seen that,” Ms Marcou said.
“For the prosecutor to say; ‘I’m going to reveal that in a court full of press’ … regretfully we’ll request to adjourn.”
In response, Mr Turner laughed in disbelief, before unsuccessfully requesting that the hearing proceed as planned.
“There is no reason this matter can’t be resolved today”, he said.
Outside the courthouse, fans of Mr Portelli had flocked to the carpark on Tuesday in search of a hidden can of his unreleased energy drink, which he had filmed himself hiding in a bush before entering court.
“I’m over here at the Sunshine Courts for a driving matter but I’m gonna hide the can,” Mr Portelli told his 436, 000 followers on Tuesday morning.
“Whoever wants it, go get it.”
The adjournment comes as Mr Portelli and his company LMCT+ face unrelated charges in South Australia, where the state’s gambling commissioner last week charged him with allegedly running an unlawful lottery.
Mr Portelli is famous for raffling off expensive prizes like sports cars, or more recently, all of the houses built in this year’s season of reality TV show The Block, to paying members of LMCT+.
The hooning case was adjourned to a date to be fixed in the new year by Magistrate Michael McNamara.
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