By FairfaxMedia
A disgraced lawyer has been released from jail and granted a retrial after he was sentenced to a five-year custodial sentence over laundering money allegedly given to him by a man accused of the notorious Richmond road gang robbery.
Williamstown solicitor John Anile, 59, left Middleton Prison last week after Victoria’s Court of Appeal found there were concerns about the conduct of defence counsel and the prosecution during the original trial.
The court quashed Mr Anile’s convictions for money laundering and obtaining property by deception. He was instructed to appear before the County Court later this month for a new trial on the same charges.
A legal team representing Mr Anile presented eight grounds on which their client should be granted an appeal, including claims the prosecutor failed to disclose crucial evidence during the trial.
In June last year, Mr Anile was found guilty by a jury of obtaining financial advantage by deception and laundering $400,000 allegedly given to him by a former kickboxing champion, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
The case against Mr Anile was part of Operation Tideland, a taskforce that investigated a slick armed robbery crew that was behind one of Melbourne’s most-notorious heists.
In the 1994 Richmond heist, syndicate members dressed as road workers allegedly held up an Armaguard truck to steal $2.4 million.
The prosecution in Mr Anile’s case did not specify the laundered money came from the heist, stating instead that the cash came from a serious offence and Mr Anile knew it was dirty.
The investigation kicked off in 2013 after Mr Anile was recorded by a key witness – known as ‘Witness U’ – talking about the cash.
“I will never tell you where the money came from. You can put a gun to my head and I will never tell you. All I can tell you is that the $400,000 cash was a small proportion of it,” Mr Anile said, according to court documents.
The cash was used to buy a plot of land near Koroit Creek Road in Williamstown.
The court was told the “under-the-table” $400,000 was used to reduce the purchase price to just over $550,000, subsequently avoiding stamp duty.
At the trial in June 2017, several prominent figures vouched for Mr Anile’s good character, including Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood, his News Corp journalist wife Kate Legge and QC Michelle Quigley, who was later appointed as a judge to the Supreme Court of Victoria.
Despite this, Judge Philip Coish said the offending was a very serious example of laundering.
“While you are not the author or the instigator … your role was pivotal,” he said.
Mr Anile served more than 13 months of a minimum three-year term, until his sudden release last week.
