SYDNEY – Australia’s most famous gangster won a reduced jail sentence Thursday on one of his drug-related convictions, after it was revealed his lawyer was a police informant.
Tony Mokbel — one of the key figures in Melbourne’s years-long gangland war — was handed a 30-year prison sentence in 2012 after pleading guilty to masterminding an elaborate drug syndicate.
Violence linked to his group, known as “The Company,” claimed dozens of lives and was later immortalized in the hugely popular Australian TV series “Underbelly.”
But it was later revealed that Mokbel’s high-profile lawyer at the time, Nicola Gobbo, was feeding information to police while supposedly defending her clients.
Mokbel spent about 18 years behind bars but was released on bail in April after a court ruled he had a strong chance of overturning the criminal convictions.
His appeal hinged on the fact he would not have pleaded guilty if he had been aware of Gobbo’s double life, his legal team told Victoria’s Court of Appeal this year.
The court subsequently acquitted him of one charge and ordered a possible retrial for another.
Thursday’s ruling related to a third charge linked to the trafficking of more than 41 kilograms of methylamphetamine between 2006 and 2007. The appeal was quashed but Mokbel obtained a shorter prison sentence.
He was initially given 20 years for that charge, which the Victorian Court of Appeal downgraded on Thursday to 13 years, seven months and 15 days in jail — time he has already served.
