Flight club alumnus Diego Carbone found guilty of murdering Bradley Dillon

A man linked to a secretive fight club has been found guilty of murdering a school acquaintance in an underground car park, alongside his ‘enforcer’ cousin.

A judge has found two men linked to a secretive Sydney fight club attended a meeting in an underground carpark with a man seeking help over a debt — armed with a Glock and a knife, and parked in a perfect getaway position — because they intended to kill him.

Diego Carbone, 30, was found guilty of murdering Bradley Dillon, 25, on Friday following a judge-alone trial in front of Justice Peter Garling in the NSW Supreme Court.

Carbone pleaded not guilty to the August 2014 murder in his second trial before the Supreme Court, after his previous 2017 conviction for the murder was quashed on appeal.

Mr Dillon, a father-of-two, was shot three times and stabbed at least four times, mostly in the back, as he was trying to flee the prearranged meeting with Carbone and his cousin Antonio “Tony” Bagnato.

Mr Dillon stumbled, blood splattering, down an off-ramp and onto the street where he collapsed on his back near Leichhardt Marketplace shopping centre.

Bagnato, a kickboxer, has not been charged with any offences and fled to Thailand two days after Mr Dillon’s murder, where he is imprisoned for unrelated crimes.

Diego Carbone has been found guilty of murder. Picture: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

Both Carbone and Mr Dillon were then former and current members of the St Michael Fight Club, which had a strict “code of silence” and where loyalty was paramount “especially against non-brothers”, the court previously heard.

Mr Dillon knew people connected to the club and he had gone to school with the pair.

He wanted to recover $2000 his sister had loaned to her ex-boyfriend, also a fight club member, the court heard.

Mr Dillon had been trying to recover the money from the ex-boyfriend for days, when he was threatened and turned to senior fight club member Bagnato for help.

Bagnato was considered the “enforcer” or “pit bull” of the fight club. He was the man others were directed to if they had an issue that needed sorting.

Justice Garling said “Tony Bagnato was the ‘leader’ and the accused (Mr Carbone) was the ‘follower’.”

Carbone, 23 at the time, was known as a “hothead” and had been kicked out of the fight club.

Justice Garling laid out his findings to the court, saying there was no rational inference available except that the accused had entered into an agreement with Bagnato to at least cause grievous bodily harm to Mr Dillon when they met him that afternoon.

There were no witnesses to the murder and so the case was a circumstantial one.

Bradley Dillon. Picture: Channel 9

From first contact with Mr Dillon, and the escape made by Carbone and Bagnato from the underground car park, there was about two hours, Justice Garling told the court.

Mr Dillon had a chance meeting with Carbone in the afternoon, and Carbone made contact with Bagnato.

Shortly after that phone call at about 4.16pm, Carbone set off from his workplace at his family’s seafood restaurant, which was also at Leichhardt Marketplace, and carried out a reconnaissance of the area, Justice Garling found.

There was an 87 second phone call between Carbone and Bagnato, and five minutes later, Bagnato had changed into a hooded sweatshirt, which could conceal his identity, and left the apartment with a pistol in his pocket.

As he left, he activated a phone that had never been used before, under a false name, such that it was not traced to him.

Bagnato drove to Leichhardt to collect Carbone at a hidden spot and they drove to the vicinity of the shopping centre.

One of the men phoned Mr Dillon and a short call was returned.

Ten minutes later, Mr Dillon parked outside the TAB and called the burner phone to signal he’d arrived.

He waited inside the TAB, obviously expecting someone else to arrive, Justice Garling said.

Mr Dillon checked his phone and discovered a message that told him the location had changed and the meeting would now take place in the underground carpark.

In that time, Carbone and Bagnato had parked their blue Holden Astra 200 metres away on a quiet street with easy access to Parramatta Rd.

Bagnato was wearing or carrying black gloves.

Antonio Bagnato with the Saint Michael tattoo visible on his stomach. Picture: AAP Image/Facebook

The men had two weapons with them, a loaded Glock with at least five rounds in it and a knife.

There was a physical struggle between “at least” Carbone and Mr Dillon, during which time he was stabbed, Justice Garling found.

This would explain the DNA under Mr Dillon’s fingernails and the piece of green fabric ripped off Carbone’s top.

As Mr Dillon attempted to flee the scene, he was shot in the back, Justice Garling found.

Bagnato and Carbone ran from the car park to their car and drove off, and were seen by multiple witnesses.

Justice Garling said if there was “no malign intention” for the meeting, then it could have occurred in an open area, or even the TAB where Mr Dillon initially expected the men’s arrival.

But instead they had the meeting in a location out of view, where there were no CCTV cameras, and used a mobile phone that couldn’t be traced to them.

As Justice Garling said he found Carbone guilty of the murder, he dropped his head and shook it.

During his trial, which began in October this year, Carbone’s barrister Mark Tedeschi told the court he did not deny being in the carpark or fighting with Dillon, but said his cousin “unexpectedly” shot the father of two.

Carbone texted a friend after the incident saying: “We were in a fight with a guy from school. I was into it with this guy. Tones (Mr Bagnato) comes in and shot him”, which Mr Tedeschi said was evidence of this.

He said it was Bagnato who inflicted the wounds that killed Mr Dillon.

Carbone was arrested trying to board a flight back to Bangkok weeks after the murder, the court heard.

Carbone will next return to court on February 25 for a sentence hearing.