Gobbo rejects alibi link to killing

NICOLA Gobbo claims suggestions she knew she was being used as an alibi by Carl Williams over the public execution of gangland figure Jason Moran are “rubbish”.

The gangland lawyer turned informer learned about Moran’s murder alongside his bodyguard Pasquale Barbaro at a children’s football clinic in a phone call from an associate of Williams.

The two men, later convicted over their involvement, spoke to Ms Gobbo on the phone claiming they were receiving weight-loss advice at a clinic at the time of the shooting.

“On the way to the medical clinic we called Gobbo to further strengthen our alibi. A short time later she called back and told me that Jason Moran had been killed,” the man, who cannot be identified, said in a statement to the inquiry. “Anyway she put the timing of my call and the shooting together and made me aware she knew she had been set up as an alibi.” But Ms Gobbo rejected his claims as “just rubbish”.

The suggestion she told him that he would be charged once another man accused over the murder finalised a deal with police was a lie, she added.

“That man was one of the biggest gossips in the whole of Melbourne at the time so there’s no way I would have said anything to him,” she said.

His claims she used amphetamines when socialising with him was also a “direct lie”, she added, while holding back laughter at a suggestion he paid her a retainer of up to $30,000 a month for legal services.

“I don’t want to laugh because this is a royal commission, but that is just unmitigated rubbish,” she said.

“He was one of the tightest human beings with money ... the suggestion he would pay me even fees, let alone hundreds of thousands of dollars, is just ridiculous.” Ms Gobbo continued to charge her clients while informing on them. She charged drug trafficker Rob Karam $60,000 over three years while also getting him arrested, charged and later convicted for the tomato tin plot to import 15 million ecstasy pills.

She pointed out to the inquiry during that period she’d also got him acquitted in an earlier drug trafficking trial.

She also told the inquiry that Victoria Police officers had concerns she’d be arrested by the Australian Federal Police over suspicions she was involved in the tomato tin import.

Her evidence, given by videolink, was originally due to end yesterday but will now continue on Tuesday.

I DON’T WANT TO LAUGH BECAUSE THIS IS A ROYAL COMMISSION, BUT THAT IS JUST UNMITIGATED RUBBISH NICOLA GOBBO