Australian criminals and their Crimes. Con artists, scum bags, murderers, corrupt cops, pollies, rapists and paedophiles will not escape notice either in my true-crime blog.More precisely it is about the criminals, the crimes and the scum-bags that commit terrible crimes in our country or against our countrymen and women. It also has expanded to cover those that ought to be charged for their idiotic disgusting behaviour. Usually high-profile people who think they are above the law. I don’t really care who are, if you’re on here you deserve to be…
Ms Membrey was last seen leaving the Manhattan Hotel in Ringwood in Melbourne’s east, where she worked as bartender, on December 6, 1994.
Her body has never been found.
This morning Bond stayed impassive as the verdicts were delivered.
The judge thanked the Membrey and Bond families for the way they carried themselves.
The accused’s mother Nola Bond and father Les entered the dock and hugged their son as mother and son wept.
At the beginning of the trial, the Crown criticised initial police investigations of Ms Membrey’s disappearance as biased and flawed and Mr Bond’s defence said there were no witnesses, DNA or fingerprint evidence linking him to the alleged crime.
In evidence given during the trial, father Roger Membrey told the jury of he and his wife’s growing concern when they went to their daughter’s unit after her disappearance and found blood.
Mr Membrey told the Supreme Court he recalled going to his daughter’s Ringwood unit with his wife Joy after phone messages went unanswered on December 7, 1994.
Elisabeth had failed to attend a doctor’s appointment that day, the jury was told.
“We were getting a bit concerned because the girls didn’t seem to be there, they weren’t answering, and the place was in darkness,” Mr Membrey said.
They managed to get inside the unit.
“We were pleased to see that everything was neat and tidy . . . so it all looked very normal, but there was one exception to that, of course,” he said.
That exception was a pool of dried blood in the hallway. Mr Membrey said he rang 000 and taxi services to see if an ambulance or cabs had been called to the home.
“It was all negative, negative,” Mr Membrey said.
Suspected murder victim Elisabeth Frances Membrey, who disappeared from her Ringwood home on December 6th, 1994.
Elisabeth Membrey’s parents Joy and Roger outside court
Shane Bond – accused of murdering the young barmaid – is escorted into the courthouse.
Shane Bond as he was depicted in a Supreme Court bail hearing in July 2010 in connection with the murder charge.
Police photograph of a bedroom in Elisabeth Membrey’s flat following her disappearance and suspected murder in 1994.
A picture of the bloody carpet found in the hallway of Elisabeth Membrey’s house.
A toe or fingernail clipping can be seen in this detailed police evidence photograph.
Evidence markings show where blood splatters appeared on the walls of the house where Elisabeth Membrey was living.
The dried blood on the walls of Elisabeth Membrey’s house would be used by homicide detectives to determine what happened in her house.
Police believe Elisabeth’s car was used by her murderer to transport her body.
Search and rescue police are helped by Warrandyte State Park staff before they ascend one of 44 gold mine shafts in the in the park searching for Elisabeth’s remains.
Police search the lake in Warrandyte for evidence surrounding her disappearance.
R v Matthew Charles Johnson (sentence) Melbourne Court 4, 11:00am Justice Lex Lasry
Johnson is set for sentencing at 11am (now) But Justice Lex Lasry will go through the crime and circumstances before he actually sentences him. Hopefully he will do that within an hour or 2….They like to go on a bit…
I expect the last words Johnson will hear before being carted back to Barwon will be life Imprisonment, and then as it will be his final appearance he will leave the judge with some fine words of wisdom…
Anyway I will put an update as soon as I get the info, I was thinking about going in for it, but apparently the scumbag’s loser friends don’t think that highly of me I hear….haha
Justice Lasry has just adjourned the court until tomorrow morning at 9.30am when further administrative applications will be heard and considered. Johnson has now been remanded to Barwon Prison until further hearing on plea and sentence.
MORE TO COME 3.50pm 29/09/11 scroll down to read what the jury didnt know about this KILLER
CARL Williams’ killer Matthew Charles Johnson has been found guilty of his murder.
The verdict was reached just before 3.23pm today after deliberations that took over 13 hours over two days.
The violent career criminal bashed the gangland identity to death with an exercise bike stem in a surprise attack caught on chilling security video.
But staff weren’t manning the cameras that captured Johnson approaching Williams, 39, from behind as he sat at a table reading the Herald Sun in his high-security Barwon prison unit on April 19 last year.
Johnson, 38, told the jury he acted in self-defence, claiming another prisoner warned him that Williams was going to attack him with a sock full of billiard balls so he had to get in first.
But a Supreme Court jury’s verdict means they didn’t believe the threat was ever made.
The trial sat for 14 days and heard explosive allegations made by Williams before his death, including that a corrupt policeman paid him to have police informer Terence Hodson executed.
The prosecution had argued that Johnson’s motive might have been Williams’ agreement to help police over the Hodson murder.
The jury weren’t told Johnson has well over 100 convictions, has spent most of his adult life in prison and has a history of bashing other inmates for “turning dog” or helping authorities.
The Premier and the General
A former concreter who didn’t finish high school, Johnson was a jail heavyweight and self-proclaimed “general” of a group of inmates who called themselves the Prisoners of War.
He wrote of his plans to kill Williams the day before he did, telling another inmate, “not much doing here brother, just D2TE (death to the enemy) the way it should be”.
“I think I’ll have to hang around for a while longer … doesn’t matter but coz I love this s—. I am the true general so I must keep things in good order, true.”
He told nobody of the threat by Williams and the man who allegedly conveyed the message, cellmate Tommy Ivanovic, did not give evidence at the trial.
Johnson claimed Williams treated him badly, looked down on him and told him he was disloyal for refusing to kill a policeman for him.
He said he feared retribution for his family outside if he reacted to Williams’ provocation.
“He was a killer. If you’re not going to take a threat that comes from his corner seriously there’s something wrong with you,” he told the jury.
The trial heard evidence from Williams’ father George, who once shared the unit with Williams and Johnson before his release on parole, and Roberta Williams.
The jury also heard details of Williams’ claims of high-reaching police corruption, including that former drug squad detective Paul Dale paid him to have Hodson killed so the informer would not be able to give evidence in Dale’s court case.
VIDEO FROM INSIDE THE UNIT THE DAY CARL WAS MURDERED
THE jury in the Matthew Johnson trial knew he was a criminal, but heard nothing of his frighteningly violent past.
More than a decade before he bashed Williams to death, he’d committed a strikingly similar crime in the very same unit of Barwon Prison – and claimed self-defence that time too.
And recently he faced a murder charge after an 18-year-old was shot dead over $50 worth of cannabis. That time, the jury believed him and he was cleared.
In 1998, he was part of a group of inmates that attacked a fellow prisoner for “giving information” to authorities – and used the same weapon he killed Williams with.
The victim of that beating, killer Greg Brazel, had been put into an Acacia unit exercise yard alone for his own safety.
But even prison walls were no match for Johnson and his cronies, who were set on attacking him.
Using a rowing machine and chair, the group pounded the armoured glass protecting Brazel for 45 minutes until they broke through, with Johnson then wielding a sandwich maker to inflict large gashes to his head.
A sandwich maker was something Johnson admitted to the jury he’d also considered using to kill Williams.
A prison officer reported seeing him use an exercise bike seat with the post attached to hit Brazel before punching and kicking him on the ground.
He ordered one of the others to stand guard and stop prison officers entering.
When charged over the assault, Johnson claimed Brazel had broken the glass himself and invited Johnson to enter before attacking him.
Johnson said he was forced to hit and kick him in self-defence.
During the County Court trial the group threw a bag of excrement into the jury box and Johnson broke wind into a microphone.
Later, Johnson menacingly called out to the juror that had been struck by the excrement – by name.
They were banished from their own hearing to watch proceedings from another room linked by video camera.
There his co-offenders bared their buttocks at the camera and the group disrupted the hearing with the Collingwood theme song.
Johnson was also involved in bashing another prisoner in 1995 after breaking into a protection unit.
By the time of the Brazel attack he had already racked up 132 convictions.
His shocking record includes taking part in the infamous Port Phillip Prison riot in 1998, armed robberies and break-ins.
He was accused of shooting dead a teenager in 2007 over a $50 drug purchase.
“Before the deceased could explain himself, Johnson pulled out a nine millimetre pistol and shot him in the chest,” the jury was told in that trial, with a co-offender giving evidence that he saw Johnson pull the trigger.
He was found not guilty of the crime. Johnson also recently pleaded guilty over a carjacking, in which he held up a mother and two teenagers at gunpoint as they sat in a McDonald’s car park
This is massive, less than a day and a half deliberations after 3 years getting to trial and 8 weeks, 300 pieces of evidence and nearly 100 witnesses Verdict to be read at 2.15 Orlando time Aust time 4.15am NOT GUILTY except for lying to law enforcement.SPEECHLESS AFTER WATCHING EVERY MINUTE LIVE
Cindy and George Anthony, parents of Casey Anthony, are the first to leave the courtroom, with their attorney Mark Lippman, after their daughter was found not guilty in her 1st-degree murder trial, at the Orange County Courthouse, in Orlando, Fla., Tuesday, July 5, 2011.
Casey Anthony reacts to being found not guilty on murder charges at the Orange County Courthouse Orlando, Fla. on July 5, 2011. At left is her attorney Jose Baez. On the right is attorney Dorothy Clay Sims.
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Casey Anthony was found not guilty Tuesday of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee Marie Anthony, in a case that captivated the nation as it played out on national television from the moment the toddler was reported missing three years ago.
Officials said Casey is back in the Orange County jail and remains in protective custody.
“As to the charge, first-degree murder, we the jury find the defendant not guilty,” read the court clerk.
Casey, 25, wept after the clerk read the verdict, which jurors reached after less than 11 hours of deliberation over two days. She was charged with first-degree murder, which could have brought the death penalty if she had been convicted.
Instead, she was convicted of only four counts of lying to investigators looking into the June 2008 disappearance of her daughter Caylee. Her body was found in the woods six months later and a medical examiner was never able to determine how she died.
Casey will be sentenced by Judge Belvin Perry on Thursday and could receive up to one year in jail for each lying count.
After the verdict was read, Casey hugged her attorney Jose Baez and later mouthed the words “thank you” to him. Prosecutor Jeff Ashton, meanwhile, shook his head in disbelief.
Casey’s parents, Cindy and George Anthony left the courtroom without speaking to her as the judge thanked the jury.
“While we’re happy for Casey, there are no winners in this case,” Baez said at a news conference after the hearing. “Caylee has passed on far, far too soon and what my driving force has been for the last three years has been always to make sure that there has been justice for Caylee and Casey because Casey did not murder Caylee. It’s that simple. And today our system of justice has not dishonored her memory by a false conviction.”
Casey’s attorneys claimed that Caylee drowned accidentally in the family swimming pool, and that her seemingly carefree mother in fact was hiding emotional distress caused by sexual abuse from her father.
Prosecutors contended that Caylee was suffocated with duct tape by a mother who loved to party, tattooed herself with the Italian words for “beautiful life” in the month her daughter was missing and crafted elaborate lies to mislead everyone from investigators to her own parents.
Captivated observers camped outside the courthouse to jockey for coveted seats in the courtroom gallery, which occasionally led to fights among those desperate to watch the drama unfold.
Casey did not take the stand during the trial, which started in mid-May. Because the case got so much media attention in Orlando, jurors were brought in from the Tampa Bay area and sequestered for the entire trial.
Baez conceded that his client had told elaborate lies and invented imaginary friends and even a fake father for Caylee, but he said that doesn’t mean she killed her daughter. “They throw enough against the wall and see what sticks,” Baez said of prosecutors during closing arugments. “That is what they’re doing … right down to the cause of death.”
He tried to convince jurors that Caylee accidentally drowned in the family swimming pool and that when Casey panicked, her father, a former police officer, decided to make the death look like a murder by putting duct tape on the girl’s mouth and dumping the body in woods about a quarter-mile away.
Her father firmly denied both the cover-up and abuse claims. The prosecution called those claims “absurd,” saying that no one makes an accident look like a murder.
Lead prosecutor Linda Drane-Burdick concluded the state’s case by showing the jury two side-by-side images. One showed Casey smiling and partying in a nightclub during the month Caylee was missing. The other was the tattoo she got a day before her family and law enforcement first learned of the child’s disappearance.
“At the end of this case, all you have to ask yourself is whose life was better without Caylee?” Burdick asked. “This is your answer.”
Prosecutors hammered on the lies Casey, then 22, told from June 16, 2008, when her daughter was last seen, and a month later when sheriff’s investigators were notified. Those include the single mother telling her parents she couldn’t produce Caylee because the girl was with a nanny named Zenaida Gonzalez, (Zanny) a woman who doesn’t exist; that she and her daughter were spending time in Jacksonville, Fla., with a rich boyfriend who doesn’t exist; and that Zanny had been hospitalized after an out-of-town traffic crash and that they were spending time with her.
DISGRACED crime fighter Mark Standen will spend at least 16 years behind bars for his role in a drug importation conspiracy plot.
The former assistant director of investigations at the NSW Crime Commission was in August found guilty by a Supreme Court jury of plotting to import 300kg of pseudoepherine.
He will not be eligible for parole until June 2024, with Justice Bruce James taking into account that Standen has been in custody since his arrest in June 2008.
He was also convicted of taking part in the supply of the supply of 300kg of the substance, used in the manufacture of the illicit drugs speed and ice.
Justice Bruce James said in his sentencing remarks this morning that Standen had conspired with his informant, drug trafficker James Kinch and food wholesaler Bakhos “Bill” Jalalaty from between January 2006 and June 2008 to import the substance.
The court heard the drugs were to be placed inside a shipping container filled with rice that would travel to Australia from Pakistan.
Justice James said that Standen “used his personal contacts (including those working at Customs) to make enquiries for the purpose of ascertaining whether the shipment of rice had come to the attention of authorities.”
The court heard it was an “abuse” of his role at the NSW Crime Commission.
“One of his duties (at work) was to investigate drug trafficking, the criminal conduct of the very sort in which he engaged,” Justice James.
Standen’s two brothers were at Darlinghurst courthouse to hear his fate this morning.
The Judge described Standen’s relationship his informant Kinch as one which “irretrievably” corrupted him.
His sentence followed a five-month trial that began in March this year.
FOLLOWING THE TRIAL OF THIS FORMER TOP COP’S DRUG TRIAL
Former investigator in court on drug charge
March 15, 2011
Mark Standen, from top investigator to Drug Player
A FORMER assistant director of investigations at the NSW Crime Commission, Mark William Standen, allegedly conspired with two men, including a former informant, to import pseudoephedrine.
Mr Standen is also accused of taking part in the supply of 300 kilograms of the substance, and of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. All the offences allegedly occurred between January 2006 and early June 2008. He has pleaded not guilty.
A jury of six men and six women, sworn in at the Sydney Supreme Court yesterday, were told he allegedly conspired to import pseudoephedrine, believing it would be used in the manufacture of a prohibited drug.
The crown prosecutor Tim Game, SC, told the jury Mr Standen was accused of conspiring with two others, James Kinch, a former informant of Mr Standen, and Bakhos Jalalaty, a businessman. One business, BJ’s Fine Foods, was based at a Blacktown warehouse.
It is also alleged Mr Standen attempted to assist Mr Jalalaty to try to obtain possession of the substance in the warehouse, to take part in its supply and that he conspired to use his position or knowledge to help divert attention from the importation, and by instructing Mr Jalalaty what to say if he was arrested.
The jury was told the trial would take about eight weeks and might hear evidence from 45 witnesses, more than half of them law enforcement officers, including officers of the NSW Crime Commission.
Justice Bruce James told the jury the first few weeks of the trial would involve the playing of telephone calls and material from listening devices, and the reading of emails.
The judge also told the jury it was an offence to research the case on the internet, and he urged them not to communicate via Twitter or other social media. The trial is due to start on Wednesday.
Ex-top policeman received $100,000 in cash, court hears
March 16, 2011
The former assistant director of investigations for the NSW Crime Commission allegedly participated in a criminal agreement to import pseudoephedrine for financial reasons, the Crown prosecutor told the NSW Supreme Court in Sydney today.
Mark William Standen allegedly received more than $100,000 in cash from a former Crime Commission informer James Kinch. He was in “desperate” need of money, the court heard.
Mr Kinch allegedly provided more than $1 million to their accused co-conspirator, Bakhos Jalalaty, who owned a food business. It was not stated in court when this payment was made.
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Mr Jalalaty invested about $580,000 of the funds in an investment company, but lost it, the jury was told.
A first shipment, containing rice, was a test run, and did not contain any pseudoephedrine, the prosecution alleges.
While Mr Standen and Mr Jalalaty believed a second shipment, which arrived in April 2008, was “the live one”, meaning it contained the prohibited substance, no pseudoephedrine was found by authorities, Crown prosecutor Tim Game, SC, said.
He said pseudoephedrine could be used to manufacture speed or ice with the addition of other substances including acetone.
Mr Jalalaty had allegedly stored 1000 litres of acetone in his warehouse on behalf of Mr Kinch, but sold it in November 2007 at a loss, he said.
Mr Standen is facing three charges and has pleaded not guilty.
Mr Game has finished his opening and Mr Standen’s barrister Mark Ierace, SC, is to address the jury this afternoon.
Standen used office to question investor
Geesche Jacobsen
March 18, 2011
Mark Standen, arrested in his office by AFP
FORMER senior Crime Commission investigator Mark Standen questioned a man in his office about a $580,000 investment by the businessman Bakhos Jalalaty which the man had allegedly lost, the jury in his trial heard.
Details of the attempts by Mr Standen to help Mr Jalalaty recover the money – including by hiring an American debt collector, and a man called Roger – were contained in a series of phone calls played in the Supreme Court yesterday.
Mr Jalalaty had allegedly been given more than $1 million by a former Crime Commission informer, James Kinch, to build up his business as a ”front” for the importation of pseudoephedrine Mr Standen, Mr Jalalaty and Mr Kinch were allegedly planning.
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In one call intercepted by police, Mr Jalalaty told Mr Standen he had spoken to Roger about plans to follow home Bruce Way, the man with whom he had invested the money.
In another call, Mr Standen told Mr Jalalaty the debt collector had brought Mr Way into his office and had questioned him about the alleged fraud and Mr Way had provided details of his business partners overseas. ”We had a little chat … [but] it does not sound very promising,” Mr Standen said.
Later, Mr Standen told Mr Jalalaty he could ”ask the right questions” but said: ”I can’t use my position to do anything.” When Mr Jalalaty suggested there was a ”good way or a bad way” to recover the money, Mr Standen said: ”I don’t want to know.”
In later calls Mr Jalalaty is heard discussing financial difficulties with his wife, saying he needed to get $500,000, allegedly to repay Mr Kinch, while he is still seeking to recover the money invested with Mr Way.
The jury was also shown a fax sent to Mr Jalalaty by an allegedly fictitious company, MDL Food & Services India, in June 2007. The fax said the company – allegedly linked to the Dutch drug syndicate – had sent him samples of salt, coconut powder and other items.
The trial continues.
Way back when he was arrested in June 2nd 2008 this story ran
A DRUG cop arrested for allegedly plotting to produce mass amounts of “ice” has a gambling problem, the NSW Crime Commission says.
Mark Standen, one of the NSW Crime Commission’s most senior criminal investigators, was arrested at his desk in Sydney yesterday over his alleged role in trying to import enough ephedrine chemicals to produce more than $120 million worth of ice.
Mr Standen is due to face Sydney’s Central Local Court today charged with conspiring to import 600kg of pseudoephedrine to be illegally used to manufacture the drug ice.
NSW Crime Commissioner Phillip Bradley said Standen has a gambling problem.
“Yes, recently we became aware of that,” he told reporters in Sydney.
Mr Bradley said a number of cases Standen had worked on while under investigation would be reviewed, but denied there was a need for a royal commission.
“It’s very damaging, there’s no doubt about that,” he said at AFP headquarters.
“This is an isolated incident, one person engaging in crime,” he alleged.
Mr Bradley said he would not be standing aside from his position, and was not aware of any prosecution that had been compromised.
“I’m not aware of any basis for a retrial,” he said.Mr Standen, 51, is accused of working with a criminal syndicate in the Netherlands to bring in the chemicals hidden in a consignment of rice.
Australian Federal Police arrested Mr Standen as part of a series of co-ordinated raids in Europe, Thailand and Sydney.
Last week about 150 police, including six SWAT teams, raided homes and offices in four cities in the Netherlands and arrested 11 suspected senior drug criminals.
The AFP put the NSW Crime Commission building in lockdown yesterday as they raided Mr Standen’s office, also seizing documents.
Mr Standen and Sydney food importer Bill Jellatly, 40, were being held in custody and questioned late last night.
In a bizarre twist, the drug-making chemicals never made it to Australia, with a rival Pakistani criminal group suspected of double-crossing the plotters and offloading the haul before it was shipped to Australia.
It is believed the arrest for alleged conspiracy to import drugs follows hundreds of hours of telephone taps.
It is alleged Mr Standen used his position and knowledge of international crime to establish the best way to smuggle in the ingredients to make ice, knowing which cargo containers are searched and how to evade the latest crime-fighting technology.
He has sat in on confidential national law enforcement meetings with police chiefs, which every month discuss the latest organised crime and illicit drug intelligence.
Mr Standen, who police codenamed “Rupert”, has worked in law enforcement for almost 30 years, including for the AFP, which he left 12 years ago; Customs; the National Crime Authority; and the NSW Crime Commission, where he has held a senior and trusted position for almost a decade.
It is alleged he linked up with a Sydney food importer and well-known British identity James Henry Kinch – codenamed “Echo” – who was arrested on the weekend about to board a flight from Bangkok to Germany.
NSW Crime Commission chiefs were yesterday in shock at the possibility of such a high-security breach of the intelligence.
The AFP had been tracking the operation for more than a year after it was uncovered by Dutch officials two years ago.
Such was the international nature of the crime, police in the Netherlands and Australia liaised with police from the United Kingdom, the United States, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Thailand and Singapore to follow the movements of the men and their haul.
