Episode 68 - Nicola Gobbo: The Lawyer X Scandal

0:15 Welcome to Crime Besties to another episode.

0:18 We just were saying it's episode 68.

0:21 Yeah, which is a bit of a lonely number.

0:23 The number 68, the moment, yeah, I mean.

0:27 Should we say it? God last week trying to do the

0:30 the edit and everything for this and typing out the night episode

0:34 number was like literally ringing in my ears 670.

0:39 For God's sake, fuck but. And then next week's obviously

0:43 69. Which we have to giggle over.

0:45 Yeah, so poor old episode 68, but here we are.

0:50 We've got to get through it. So So there you go.

0:54 We'll. Give you some respect 68, yeah.

0:57 Yeah, we're throwing a good one at you.

0:59 Yeah, for sure. It's a nice meaty one for you.

1:02 Absolutely. Last night we went to a true

1:05 crime event. We did.

1:07 We did. We went to, we saw Andrew Rule

1:11 and John Sylvester speak. Yeah, they were good.

1:14 They were really good. John Sylvester tells a very

1:17 funny story. He's great.

1:18 He's got such a dry sense of humour.

1:20 He's very, very funny. Yeah.

1:22 And Andrew Rules, Andrew Rule, like, you know, he's, he's

1:25 fantastic too. But yeah, they were selling

1:27 their books at the last night and my mom's like, oh, I want to

1:33 go up and buy a book. And I was like, well, I'll come

1:35 up and take a photo of you with them because she's she's such a

1:38 fan girl. She's freaking hilarious.

1:40 Anyway, so we go up there, she goes up board, Andrew rules new

1:43 book life and crimes, same as his same name as his podcast and

1:49 gets behind there for a photo and she goes, did you know my

1:52 daughter? She does a podcast.

1:53 I'm like, oh for fuck's sake. He does not give a shit about

1:56 it. Oh, it was so embarrassing.

1:59 I'm like. Oh, Lynn, we loved it.

2:02 I like. It like they give a crap about

2:05 that. I loved it, though at the end,

2:06 one of the audience members would have put in questions and

2:09 said, you know, have you ever had anyone that, you know, in

2:10 the audience, like, from your stories that you tell?

2:13 And I was like, yeah, sitting right here.

2:15 Ron Iddles Emma's dad, who's literally spitting image of raw

2:20 needles. Even though he he's like, Oh no,

2:22 I don't see. It don't see it.

2:23 Oh, come on. He really The only difference is

2:26 raw Needles has blue eyes and Dad has brown eyes.

2:29 You can't tell. You can't even tell.

2:30 Yeah, exactly. Like literally could be twins.

2:33 I know. All only has to be 10% true,

2:35 Russell. That's right.

2:38 It's more than 10% true, Dad, trust us, trust us.

2:42 But last night Mum and Dad shouted us the tickets to this.

2:45 Is that as their unofficial patriot?

2:47 So I think we probably should shout them out.

2:49 I don't know. So Lynn and Russ, thank you very

2:52 much for shouting every tickets. That was lovely.

2:56 We had a lovely night school night though.

2:58 Oh yeah, we need to be home at reasonable hour.

3:00 At least it didn't go too too. Late.

3:02 No, it was pretty good actually. Yeah.

3:03 So that was all right. But yeah, it was very

3:05 interesting. They talked a bit about the

3:06 mushroom case, which I found, you know, there were a couple of

3:10 things that, you know, he sort of touched on that I was like,

3:13 oh, yeah, that's right. It sort of already had kind of

3:15 escaped my mind a little bit. Yeah.

3:17 And then obviously, you know, at the minute, I think he's, he

3:20 said they were going to court today.

3:21 The appellate court was it. Today for today for that one,

3:23 because yeah, there was another one that's today, which is the

3:26 the missing campers. Oh, that's that's.

3:28 What I'm yeah, Greg Lynn and so his appeal is being court today.

3:33 Well, it's not being the appeal itself isn't being heard.

3:35 I think it's just basically they're hearing the as in like

3:37 will they listen to the appeal? Sure.

3:39 It's basically this way this. Like it's just dimension or

3:41 hearing. Steps in this so yeah, it's

3:43 basically there's the decision as to whether or not the appeal

3:46 is upstanding enough to warrant a full hearing Yeah OK.

3:50 So it'll be interesting to see what comes of that because oh

3:53 God, you and I spoke. About it, yeah, we've spoken

3:55 about it. I mean, obviously we've done the

3:57 done the case on it too, if you guys wanna go back and have a

3:59 listen to that if you haven't already and.

4:01 Unfortunately, John Sylvester kind of agreed with our take on

4:04 things. I was hoping to hear something

4:06 from him last night to kind of. So he knows something more and

4:08 it'll be fine. But I think we said it in the

4:11 episode and like obviously he was.

4:14 Greg Lin was convicted of 1 murder and and sort of not of

4:17 the other. Got away with one, will he get

4:19 away with another? Yeah, even though as like even

4:22 John's first, it was like he's guilty as all hell.

4:24 Yeah, but he told some a story about it, somebody he knew who

4:28 had known him 20 odd years ago. And you know, there was some

4:31 very questionable. All the behaviour.

4:34 Behaviour very, very odd. So, you know, oh God, it would

4:40 worry me if he were back out in society.

4:42 Absolutely, totally. And and The thing is I don't

4:46 think, I honestly don't think anyone questions that he did it.

4:48 It's just basically now legal jargon as to whether or not you

4:52 can convict him on it. And that's what's so frustrating

4:55 about it. Yeah.

4:56 And. Actually, the other thing they

4:58 told us is that Greg Lynn's lawyer.

4:59 Who? Desmond.

5:01 Dermot Dunn. Dermot Dunn, thank you.

5:03 Why did I? What was AD name?

5:05 He is obviously Greg Lynn's lawyer and he's amazing.

5:08 But yeah, Aaron Patterson has just hired him for her appeal

5:12 process. She's fired her attorneys.

5:14 Yeah, her barristers, and she's now hired him.

5:17 And he is. As Andrew Rule said yesterday,

5:19 if you get done for murder, he's the one you want in your corner.

5:23 Yeah, So. And they're like, yeah, he's,

5:25 he's sort of Supreme Court Justice material.

5:27 Like, he's amazing. Yes.

5:28 Knows the law inside out and back to front and how to work it

5:31 I guess. Both ways work it in his favour

5:33 of like defending. And and he's doing it within the

5:36 confines. Of the law, this is it, yeah.

5:38 And we'll get into a bit of that today, I guess, too, with the

5:40 case we're doing today. 100%, yeah.

5:43 I mean, the legal system isn't perfect in that way that there

5:46 are ways of like someone who is guilty.

5:49 Yeah. Getting if If things aren't done

5:51 in a neat, tidy bow, there are ways that the legal system can

5:55 be rotted. You know, like so.

5:56 It's it's terrifying, actually. Yeah, Yeah.

5:59 You know, when you think, OK, it's done and dusted and OK,

6:01 maybe he because he didn't get convicted of the two, Fine.

6:04 At least he's in prison. Yes, You know, at least he's not

6:07 in, out in society. What label is on that?

6:10 Who? That doesn't kind of matter as

6:11 long as he's in there, yeah. That's it.

6:13 Yeah, See it. We'll watch this space and see

6:16 what comes of comes of the hearing today.

6:18 Yeah, just sort of on a bit of a different tack.

6:22 I don't think you and I've even really discussed this face to

6:24 face. Yeah, we hit 200,000 downloads

6:28 this week. We did so.

6:31 Go us. I remember the start of the

6:33 year, we were like, imagine, like.

6:34 I reckon we'll hit 100,000. I remember us both sort of

6:36 going, Oh my gosh, we could make 50.

6:37 And then I think it was Peter went, no, we work it out

6:40 mathematically. Yeah.

6:41 You know, 100,000 we could get to this, you know, this year,

6:44 yeah. And oh, OK, we doubled that.

6:46 Even it's October and we hit over over 200,000 now.

6:50 So yeah, each and every single one of you who has listened to

6:53 an episode, downloaded an episode, liked, commented and

6:55 everything. Thank you.

6:57 We we actually this is this blows my mind.

7:00 It completely does. And when I see the the amount of

7:02 episodes that people are listening to each week, I'm like

7:05 blown I've. Been hit away 10,000 a week yeah

7:08 it's insane I just I think God that's scary it's.

7:11 Scary. It's scary, but.

7:14 People are clearly liking it. I mean, there's the odd person

7:17 that doesn't, which we were talking about last.

7:19 Night. Oh my God, what was the what was

7:20 the comment that person made? Well, I pity the person who

7:23 finds this. That's right.

7:29 I'm loving. I pity the person.

7:30 Yeah. So sorry, everyone.

7:33 OK, that's good for you. But just move on.

7:37 Move on. Why do you need?

7:38 Why do you feel the need to come in?

7:39 It was a very lengthy bash. Yeah, it was a really long

7:44 comment. Oh, wow.

7:45 Yeah. But it was surrounded by really

7:47 lovely ones, so I feel like. Above it was like my favorite

7:50 podcast and below it was like, yes, this is the this one in the

7:54 middle. Like pity the person.

7:56 Oh, I love it. Interesting.

7:57 Oh, I love it. It's so funny.

7:59 Yeah. You know, any publicity is good

8:01 publicity. We're literally.

8:02 Helping us by commenting and rating us reviewing it even for.

8:05 This bad? Exactly.

8:07 A few more shout outs that I've got today.

8:09 We have a new Patreon this week named Alessia E, obviously

8:13 unofficially Lynn and Russ. And then we had a really lovely

8:17 Instagram DM from a man by the name of Tom Mcinnis.

8:21 And and then I also wanted to shout out last night, we're

8:23 standing in the queue waiting to go into the event.

8:26 And my dad tells me that ages ago, like months ago, I think he

8:31 was at one of his friend's daughter's houses.

8:34 I think dad was working there. Maybe her name is Ricky.

8:37 And he's like, Oh yeah, she was listening to you.

8:39 And I told they were talking about podcasts or something.

8:42 And he said, Oh, my daughter's got a podcast and he said what

8:45 it is. And she's like, oh, I listened

8:47 to that already. So thank you, Ricky.

8:50 Amazing, I love that. I hope Dad did a good job at

8:52 your place. Don't hold it against it.

8:56 And then the other thing is today is Halloween.

8:58 We are recording on the 31st of October.

9:02 What are your kids dressing up as?

9:04 Look, it's not my job. This what, this year they're

9:07 yeah. So I'm handballing that one off

9:09 to their dad for this weekend. So I don't know.

9:14 I. Good luck.

9:15 So, yeah, exactly. My so Oliver is dressing up as

9:18 Peter Griffin from Family Guy, even though he has never seen a

9:22 Family Guy episode ever. But I think this for Peter

9:25 Griffin, you can get that character on Fortnite.

9:28 Oh, OK. And so it's just So what is it's

9:30 actually brilliant what he's doing.

9:31 He's wearing his school shorts because he'll never wear pants.

9:35 Fine, whatever. An oversized white short sleeve

9:39 shirt and he's going to put a pillow up it because he's got a

9:41 big tum, right? As in Peter Griffin's got a big

9:44 tum. He's Harry Potter glasses.

9:46 Yep. Brown sneakers in a brown belt.

9:48 I'm like, this is just brilliant.

9:49 He's come up with this all on his.

9:51 Own just done it all on his own because yeah, I didn't have to.

9:53 I didn't have to do anything, thankfully.

9:55 And what's Lee? Keep going as I'll give you one

9:58 guess. Do you need a hint?

10:01 Yeah. My little soda pop.

10:05 ABS, Abby. He's going as Abby and all I

10:08 needed to source for that costume was a yellow beanie.

10:11 And a really tight, tight shirt. Well, you know what?

10:14 I've got a size 7 Hawaiian shirt in the wardrobe.

10:18 The. Hawaiian The.

10:19 Hawaiian shirt. Oh, our boys have matching

10:22 Hawaiian shirts from back in a few years ago.

10:24 And I I don't know why, but I hadn't gotten rid of it and it

10:26 does just fit him. Someone loves it.

10:28 Perfection. Oh, he's gonna shut him down.

10:30 Popping out of the ball. I.

10:32 Mean he's not stupid. I love that.

10:35 But then I was talking to one of the teachers at school this

10:38 morning and he goes, oh God, this weather.

10:41 It's going to be on and off like this all day and I'm just hoping

10:45 for torrential rain about 5:00 PM that makes trick or treating

10:50 impossible. Non starter, yeah.

10:53 Yeah, and he's like, won't they just want to do it tomorrow?

10:56 I'm like, well, too late, it's over tomorrow.

10:57 So nice. My boys sort of said that to me

11:00 as well. But you know, if we can't do it

11:01 Friday night, like we'll just do it like when we come back to you

11:04 on Monday and I'm like, no, no, no.

11:07 People would have what they. I literally put my decorations

11:10 up yesterday. I've just got a few things at

11:12 the door. Yeah.

11:13 And I will be taking them down tomorrow morning.

11:15 Yeah, like that's it. It's done.

11:16 That's it. I mean.

11:17 We're not. You can't.

11:18 Sort of don't know extend it. No, it is a bit like isn't like

11:23 it's like Christmas, it's like one day.

11:24 Yeah, it's a. Day.

11:25 Well, Christmas bloody goes for months.

11:26 Oh yeah, but like. But I know what you.

11:29 Mean it is only comes once. That's true.

11:31 Yeah, it's a day. Yeah, a single day.

11:34 Oh gosh. Oh anyway, and also I'm really

11:37 happy for them not to have all those lollies and have all those

11:39 lollies in the house, although I do like taking my mum tax.

11:42 And what a real tax. Well, yeah, and I've got to take

11:44 like the good stuff, like a a mini Snickers.

11:48 Oh. Yeah, interesting.

11:49 Love a mini. I freaking love a Snickers.

11:52 You know what I've been loving lately, actually?

11:55 And I'm not really a chocolate fan.

11:56 Like, I would prefer an ice cream.

11:59 Yeah. Like a strawberries and cream

12:02 lolly. Yeah.

12:03 You know, like the Ellen's only Ellen's only, not the bullshit.

12:06 Anything else, it has to be Ellen's Fresh soft strawberries

12:10 and cream. Yep.

12:11 Yep. Not a massive chocolate fan, but

12:13 then I bought Cadbury breakaway chocolate recently.

12:18 Oh my God. I'll give you some.

12:19 I'll give you some when we finish recording.

12:21 What's what's in that? OK, Think Kit Kat.

12:24 Yeah, but with Cadbury chocolate.

12:26 Oh, because I love I like a Kit Kat.

12:28 Me too, love a Kit Kat. This is like extra level,

12:33 although it's called breakaway and it's really difficult to

12:35 actually break away, but so up here, up here, well.

12:39 That'll really shit me because there's nothing worse like with

12:41 a Kit Kat than people who eat them the wrong way.

12:43 Oh, I know you know who eats them the wrong way.

12:45 Oliver Wood A. 100%, yes, yeah. Do that.

12:49 Just don't annoy them. Just.

12:50 Exactly. He bites them.

12:52 I know, I know. He doesn't snap them.

12:54 Snap. Them and then you've got to chew

12:56 the end and then the other end, and then you chew around this.

12:59 Yes, no, no. He just eats it like it's a

13:02 sandwich, you know what I mean? Like.

13:04 Just that's so wrong. Yeah, as my niece would say.

13:09 I'm gonna say my daughter, which same diff.

13:11 That is a psychopath. Yeah, yeah, it's very odd.

13:15 It's very odd behavior. Yeah, it's concerning.

13:21 Yeah. So where did that come from?

13:24 Oh yeah, come Halloween lollies, yes, happy to take my mum tax of

13:28 what I want out of there. But then like some of this shit

13:30 they get. Like, oh, some of it's like

13:32 full, I don't know, I didn't know what it is and I don't want

13:34 to know. Like it's I'm not into sweet.

13:36 I don't get lollies. Yeah, you're not a lolly person.

13:39 No. Do you remember we went last

13:41 year And OK, my my thought has always been that if you're

13:45 giving a Halloween lolly, it needs to be individually

13:48 wrapped. Only individually wrapped.

13:50 How many times last year did we come across lollies that weren't

13:54 wraps? Feel like I might have blocked

13:56 that entire event out and I don't remember.

13:58 And yeah. For real good reason.

14:00 Yeah. The chaos of it.

14:03 Yeah. It was just.

14:04 It's. It's actually chaos does not

14:05 even begin. No, does not even begin.

14:09 Yeah. But there was stuff that was

14:10 unwrapped. So I feel like you surely need

14:11 to go over if. Oh, 100%.

14:14 I'm pretty sure I said that to the boys this morning.

14:16 I'm like, but don't eat anything until I've approved it.

14:19 You just never know. I know it's sad, but you just

14:21 never know. You can't be too careful.

14:23 Just germs in general, like people putting their hands in a

14:26 bucket of always and handing it to you.

14:27 I just not a bit. I've got a germaphobe, but that

14:29 kind of gets me, gives me a bit of the year class definitely.

14:31 The other thing is, I was reading some stats during the

14:34 week about apparently 30% of men and 18% of women don't wash

14:39 their hands after going to the toilet.

14:41 That does actually doesn't surprise me when I live with

14:43 boys like yeah. Lucas can't stand it.

14:47 He tells Brody off all the time. I love this.

14:49 Please, Lucas. And now Brody's actually started

14:51 coming home with like and so on, so he didn't wash their hands in

14:54 the bathroom. Oh yeah, because Lucas would be

14:55 all over it. Thank you.

15:00 Actually in the toilet at work the other day and like I could

15:03 hear that the person in the store next to me left and didn't

15:05 wash their hands. I was like a workplace.

15:08 That is disgusting. It's gross.

15:10 That's. So yuck.

15:11 I don't know who it was. I mean, you're not a workplace

15:14 I. Know I work in healthcare like

15:15 it's. Yeah, Christ.

15:17 Oh, Nah, Nah. I love that one of the girls at

15:19 school, those pinned your son entirely of like, I bet his

15:22 bedroom's neat and tidy. Oh, this was.

15:24 So funny. So I was doing parent helper

15:26 this week and this gorgeous. I was doing reading with this

15:30 gorgeous girl and we were reading a book about this

15:33 naughty boy. And he did lots of naughty

15:35 things and, like, it all turned around in the end and it was all

15:37 fine. But his mum had told him, like,

15:40 you know, he'd trashed his room for some reason.

15:42 His mum was like, you know, you need to go and clean up your

15:44 room. And she goes, so she's reading

15:46 this and she looks at me and she's like, Lucas has a neat

15:49 room. Does.

15:49 No, she goes, does Lucas have a neat room?

15:51 I'm like, yeah, he's pretty neat and tidy, actually.

15:54 And she's like, I knew Lucas had have a neat room.

15:57 He just. And then comes across that,

15:58 yeah. And then the kid had done

16:01 something else and she goes, I know Lucas would never do that.

16:04 I was so gorgeous. I love.

16:06 It. Perfect.

16:07 Yeah, Yeah. Well, in her eyes, anyway.

16:11 Oh, you should see him when he's on fire, dude.

16:13 But you know, we all have. That because we still say neat

16:15 and tidy. Yeah, yeah, that's right.

16:18 Or. Throw the tantrum and throw the

16:20 toys, but he will pack them up afterwards. 100%, that is

16:23 actually exactly. He can't stand it.

16:25 I love it. Yeah.

16:26 All right. Should we get into today's case?

16:28 Because we don't want to be accused of drivel or of boring

16:33 people to death before we actually get into the crime.

16:35 So today we're talking about none other than Lawyer X, Nicola

16:40 Gobbo. This case has fascinated me for

16:44 so many years it's insane. I still remember, Yeah, reading

16:50 stuff about this before we knew that Lawyer X was Nicola Gobbo.

16:52 Yes, yeah. And like this is what I kind of,

16:54 I mean, in all of that. And I I think when we get into

16:57 this, there's so many people who knew it was her in who were in

17:01 this before it was named. She was named Yeah, like that.

17:04 I'm amazed it didn't come out sooner anyway, but it's insane.

17:08 What this, what all this, what? How this ball went down?

17:11 Yeah. I mean, there were suppression

17:12 orders sort of limiting. Her journalistically, yeah,

17:18 that, I mean. Even.

17:19 Do you mean just in the ether? Just like, yeah, infiltrating

17:21 around. I mean, I guess I'm just not

17:22 that close to Mick Gatto to know, like get that Intel, but

17:25 surprisingly. Enough.

17:27 Yeah, Tony Mokbel isn't over for dinner every Wednesday night.

17:30 Well, but yeah, look and but honestly how she's survived, I

17:37 am blown. Away.

17:38 Oh, this is it. I'm so surprised she's alive.

17:40 Yeah, but then that's what I think at the end of the day,

17:43 this I kind of question a lot of this like, like who's giving the

17:47 full story here? I don't.

17:49 And this is, you know, you, we've been obviously heavily

17:52 researching this this last week. And I think you're right.

17:55 There is, there's truth in there somewhere.

17:57 There's embellishments in there everywhere.

17:59 And everyone's probably got an element of truth to their story,

18:03 but we don't know what element of their story is the truth.

18:07 And it's a jumbled mess. But I feel like, you know, yeah,

18:13 it's, it's just a crazy, crazy story.

18:15 And what makes it like that so crazy is because we're talking

18:19 about today like, you know, the Melbourne underworld of, like,

18:21 the 90s, early 2000s, which was an insane time in organized

18:26 crime in this state. Yeah.

18:29 And The thing is with people that were involved in this, they

18:32 love to embellish a story and make themselves look big and

18:34 look bad and look amazed. Look, you know, tough, worse

18:38 than someone else. Yeah.

18:39 But at the same time, they don't want people knowing what they

18:41 did. And so it's like this, it's this

18:43 real juxtaposition of like trying to work out like, what is

18:46 truth in all of that? Of like, what are they

18:47 embellishing on and what are they hiding and why?

18:49 What's and why? What's the difference between

18:51 the two of that? Why is it OK to say, Oh yeah, I

18:53 would have, I murdered that bloke and I did that to that

18:55 person. I've done that before.

18:56 But you know, the, the true stuff then is the stuff they

18:59 don't talk about. So I think.

19:00 They're sort of happy to be like, OK, yeah, I murdered Joe

19:04 Bloggs. So many people.

19:05 So people, because then if they were then charged for it, it

19:08 couldn't be proven because they didn't actually do it.

19:10 Maybe I don't, I don't know. I don't know what it is and what

19:13 the motivation is at times or who, and it can be who they're

19:15 talking to or you know. So yeah, there's so much of of

19:19 fact that's lost, I think, in all of that as well.

19:22 So yes. Oh, it's how to find the find it

19:25 all in there is quite, quite insane.

19:28 Yeah, and I mean though they alltel a different story and I

19:31 think that the part of that is to make sure that no one finds

19:34 out the truth. Yeah, there's so much mud, you

19:37 know, How do you see the forest for the trees with all?

19:39 This, yeah, and then let alone the cops.

19:41 Yeah, Yeah. Well that's another thing, isn't

19:45 it? So we're not going to get into

19:46 too much of the actual underworld cases or anything

19:48 today. We will absolutely.

19:50 That is on the list. It's huge though.

19:52 We're probably going to need multi parts to that one and a

19:55 lot of time to research. So yeah, we'll we'll fit that in

19:58 somewhere, but. We'll mention names of people

20:01 and. Definitely, but I feel like this

20:04 is actually probably a good thing to start with in terms of

20:08 the underworld stuff because it does provide a lot of context to

20:12 the cases and the people that we'll be talking about hopefully

20:14 in future episodes for sure. Yeah.

20:17 So Nicola Marie Gobbo now first of all, Marie middle name.

20:25 I feel like anyone born in the 70s to probably mid 80s.

20:29 Yeah. Your middle name was either

20:30 Marie or Louise. Yeah, Elizabeth or Elizabeth.

20:32 Yeah, yeah, sorry. What's your middle name?

20:34 Elizabeth. What's my middle name?

20:35 Marie. Marie.

20:37 You're Marie. Yes, it's, I don't know, so many

20:42 bloody Louises. I know.

20:44 So, yeah. OK.

20:45 Nicola. Nicola Marie Gobbo was born on

20:47 the 16th of November in 1972 in Melbourne.

20:50 She actually grew up to her parents.

20:54 Her dad was actually a first generation immigrant and her mum

21:01 was Australian. Yes.

21:03 Yeah. And they, you know, they ended

21:06 up. So Nicola is one of five

21:07 children, very sort of successful children for the most

21:13 part, but they grew up in a time where if you're the child of a

21:18 first generation Australian, there's a lot of expectation on

21:21 you. Her mum and dad both worked

21:22 very, very hard and they put all of their children through

21:27 private secondary schools or, or Catholic secondary schools.

21:31 I think Nicola went to Jenna Zano.

21:32 Zano. Yeah.

21:33 And I know her sister and they, the pressure on them to do well,

21:38 it was basically like if they didn't perform well

21:41 academically, they were wasting their mom and dad's money.

21:43 They were. They were throwing their money

21:44 down the drain. So there was a lot of

21:46 expectation. And I feel like this is probably

21:48 a fairly common story to children of certainly first

21:52 generation immigrants. Yeah.

21:54 And you know that her parent, Nicholas, says that her parents

21:58 just wanted the best for her and the best life for her and her

22:00 siblings. And, you know, to them,

22:03 financial stability and financial well-being was part of

22:07 that or a massive part of that to be able to then have the life

22:10 that they wanted them to have. Yep.

22:13 So, yeah, and that I think their dad, you know, he worked very,

22:17 very hard, yes, in multiple jobs and and all that along their

22:21 life. But but Nicholas says they grew

22:23 up in a very ordinary They weren't rich by any stretch of

22:28 the imagination. They had what they needed, not

22:30 necessarily what they wanted. And yeah, they were just a

22:35 typical sort of suburban family. Yeah, for.

22:39 Sure, yeah, when Nicola was sort of deciding on a career, she

22:45 said that she originally thought she wanted to be a doctor.

22:50 But then there was a few things about that, that she was like,

22:53 oh, maybe that's not for me. And so decided to go down the

22:57 law path instead. I think part of that decision

22:59 was because one of her uncle's was actually a Supreme Court.

23:02 Well, he was a QC at the time, Yeah.

23:05 And then he ended up becoming a Supreme Court Justice.

23:07 Didn't. He because he actually rejected

23:08 it at first when he was first offered it and then and then

23:10 went later on in his career. But yeah, so James Gobbo.

23:13 So James was her uncle and he's very well respected in the law.

23:18 He was also the governor of Victoria for life for a time.

23:20 So yeah, very well known man and very well respected.

23:24 Yeah, the Gobo name then became, it was a bit of a, you know,

23:28 notoriety to it. And so even though she was his

23:31 niece, she would kind of use the name to her advantage and almost

23:34 it wouldn't correct people if they said that that was her dad

23:37 basically from what I got. What's wrong with a bit of

23:40 nepotism? Yeah.

23:45 So anyway, she's obviously decided to go down and pursue

23:47 law. So did her sister.

23:48 Yeah. And they were both very, very

23:52 good at what they did, Nicola in particular.

23:54 In fact, Nicola was one of the youngest women to be admitted

23:58 into the bar at 26 years of age. Yeah, what an incredible

24:02 achievement. Yeah, I mean, I think I only

24:03 took her a couple of years after after uni and she was admitted

24:05 into the bar, on the bar. I think a lot of that had to do

24:07 with the fact that when she was doing her like post grad hours,

24:15 she was mentored by a criminal lawyer who really did push her

24:20 down that path and saw that she had something in her that he

24:26 thought she would make an incredible barrister.

24:30 And I guess depending on who you ask that that was the case.

24:35 She was really, really good at, well, certainly we'll, we'll get

24:39 to this in more detail, but really good at bail application,

24:42 bail application, people out of bail like really nitpicking.

24:45 That was really her, like, absolute best thing she could

24:48 do, yeah. I did hear something about she

24:50 this was, and this was out of her mouth where she basically

24:53 said that because a lot of the briefs for a bail application,

24:57 sorry, a bail hearing, the briefs from the prosecution were

25:03 put together by police. She's like, well, they don't

25:06 have law degrees. So I was able to be like, well,

25:08 no, you can't say that. Or.

25:10 And it would be the tiniest little, yeah, little tiny thing

25:13 that would mean that her her clients would get bail when

25:17 probably they shouldn't have. Allegedly.

25:24 Yeah. So it was just very, very, very

25:26 interesting. So she was, I guess let's let's

25:31 call it upfront, but she is a an incredibly notorious lawyer and

25:37 known as being a secret police informant.

25:41 Yeah. And I guess this is the bit that

25:46 kind of I was really interested in exploring when looking into

25:50 this this week, that the juxtaposition between the

25:53 loyalty to her client and and the privilege to her client and

25:59 then the betrayal of them, like it's, it's so at odds with one

26:03 another. Yeah, I, this is what I find

26:04 really fascinating. I mean, obviously we're talking

26:06 again, it's like it's this underworld time in Melbourne

26:09 here where there was a lot of pressure on the police to, you

26:13 know, get this to stop. We were having, you know, dead

26:16 bodies turn up left, right and centre and, and shootings at in,

26:19 in really awful situations, for example, with one of the Moran's

26:23 being killed in front of his in front of his children at Oz

26:26 kick. I mean, we're talking horrendous

26:28 stuff that was going on in that time that the police were, you

26:31 know, we need to stop this and really get, you know, on top of

26:35 it, you know, and so they were like, we'll do anything to get a

26:38 handle on this underworld war, the gangland war that was

26:42 occurring. And then obviously then you've

26:44 got on the other side of the fence, the lawyers who are

26:47 getting these guys out of jail every time the cops put them in

26:49 there. You know, like that's a real,

26:52 it's, it's, I can understand the struggle of that between the

26:55 two, you know, opposing situations that yet there's a

26:58 legal stance that, you know, lawyers then come in to do and

27:00 they make their money off of that.

27:01 That's it, which is a joke. But like, in some sense that's

27:04 not a joke, but it is like. No, I I know you mean it's

27:06 ridiculous. Ridiculous.

27:07 And I hate that for the police who work their butts off to get

27:10 to get the crook. Yeah.

27:12 And then they literally have to put their hands in the air and

27:13 go. What else can I do now other

27:15 than like, I've handed him over to you and now the legal system

27:18 shoot him back out again? And it was this vicious cycle of

27:21 these guys going, you know, we finally nabbed 1 and up here

27:24 they are back on the street again doing it again, you know,

27:26 So I mean, that's I can understand that from a police

27:29 perspective of going, what can we do here?

27:31 Yeah. To get a handle on this and

27:32 start getting some crooks really locked up for good time.

27:36 But they're illegally allowed to have representation and good

27:40 representation. And that's a.

27:42 Cornerstone of our legal system isn't it, is that everyone has

27:45 the right to an attorney. And so the Victoria Police set

27:50 up a the Piranha task Force and they were basically told that

27:55 they had almost unlimited scope in terms of what they could do

28:01 to to get these to stop this underworld stuff from happening

28:05 and also to get all of those drugs off the street like it is.

28:08 We'll again, as we go through, we'll get to a little bit more

28:11 about that sort of stuff. But it's, you know, I think I

28:15 just wonder, does the end justify the means?

28:19 And I'm not saying yes or no, I just think that's something

28:22 people need to consider. That's a huge.

28:23 Question in this. Yeah, Yeah.

28:26 Is it OK? Yeah, I actually don't know.

28:30 I maybe as we talk this through, we'll I don't know whether maybe

28:32 because something but you. Sit there sort of like, OK,

28:34 loyal client privilege was what I mean.

28:37 She was representing some of these people directly or

28:41 advising them, which is a different thing.

28:43 You can advise someone not be their lawyer, but you, if you

28:45 are representing them, as in you are literally going to court and

28:48 speaking on their behalf. Her take of whether or not there

28:53 was client privilege there I find a bit murky in that the

28:58 understanding of the layman who comes just to a lawyer and says,

29:02 right, you're my lawyer, is that whatever I tell you is between

29:05 US and doesn't go any further. And I think that that is a fair

29:09 assumption of someone who is speaking to their lawyer.

29:12 Whereas she was kind of like trying to cherry pick here in

29:16 terms of what was and wasn't client privilege.

29:18 Yeah. So she would basically state

29:20 that if someone had come to her about that a murder had occurred

29:23 and they're being charged with that, that anything they

29:25 discussed about that murder they were charged with was client

29:28 lawyer privilege. But if in the meantime of

29:31 telling them about this law, this murder, a story would come

29:34 up of like Joe Blow down the street.

29:37 Oh, like, you know, because he's got an ecstasy ring and he's

29:39 running that out of XYZ, you know, housing house down that

29:42 street. That was not client privilege

29:46 and that was the stuff that she was sharing with the police.

29:50 But I, I mean, I don't think that's actually what was

29:52 happening. I think that there's, I mean,

29:54 it's clearly we'll get to it, but there's links to things of

29:56 like her clients directly. But I still even find that that

30:01 should still be lawyer client privilege.

30:03 Yeah, because you're telling the story and somehow this person's

30:07 relevant or whatever that's within the story of that.

30:10 Therefore it's it's. Connected whenever she's

30:13 challenged on that though, she's staunch about it and she's like,

30:16 no, they were not my client. That is not a.

30:18 Breach, yeah, and. I guess.

30:20 And look, even the Supreme Court Justice has said absolutely this

30:25 is not. She didn't break the law in some

30:27 of those instances. Yeah.

30:28 And she didn't break privilege, but she certainly acted

30:31 unethically. So yeah, again, we can talk

30:34 further to that. Yeah, I think so.

30:37 She started as a criminal defence lawyer in the early

30:40 1990s. And she like, when we're talking

30:43 about these underworld figures, we're talking Tony Mokbel, Carl

30:47 Williams, Farouk Orman, yes, and countless others.

30:52 I mean, you know, all the little cronies who kind of fell

30:55 underneath them. And she'd go and act on their

30:57 behalf in terms of bail applications or sometimes she

31:00 would actually tell them the wrong thing in order to protect

31:03 these bigger players. So she certainly wasn't the most

31:08 ethical of. No representation.

31:12 I'd almost call her the real estate agent of lawyers.

31:15 She was playing both sides. Yes, which is just.

31:18 That's what's so wrong about this.

31:19 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Over the time of the gangland

31:22 wars, which was 1998 till 2006 in Melbourne, 30 people directly

31:28 have been attributed to being killed as part of that.

31:31 But I, I think it's actually untold in terms of the amount

31:34 of. People just in terms of the

31:35 drugs that were being pumped out and like what, you know, the,

31:38 you know, the effects of that in the within Melbourne and and

31:41 beyond. Yeah, that that yeah, there's

31:43 certainly yeah, other people who are affected by this for sure.

31:47 Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.

31:49 Would we just touch on what happened prior to her becoming a

31:52 lawyer either? Even.

31:53 Sure. So in 1993, this stage, so she's

31:56 still studying her law degree and she was she'd bought a house

32:01 because her her dad had passed away by this point and left her

32:04 a considerable amount of money. So she had bought a house that

32:07 she was living in, but to help pay the bills and things like

32:09 that, she brought her boyfriend in to live and be in in

32:12 housemate, but also her boyfriend.

32:14 And I think he. Started as a housemate and ended

32:16 up. Ended up became the boyfriend.

32:18 Yeah. Anyway, so one day in 1993, the

32:21 house was raided by the police. So.

32:24 And what was found was amphetamines, marijuana.

32:28 There were weapons found and these belonged to well the story

32:33 goes they belonged to her boyfriend Brian Wilson and

32:36 another person as well who was linked to this Brian.

32:40 So they were charged with drug possession.

32:43 Now because she was the owner of the house, she should also, she

32:47 was also charged with that because no matter what these

32:51 things were being possessed in her house.

32:53 So therefore she has to be charged.

32:57 But at the time she gave evidence against her boyfriend

33:01 and this other person, which meant that she got instead of

33:05 being charged, convicted of this.

33:06 She wasn't charged basically because of the the evidence she

33:10 gave. Now according to her, it was

33:14 because a couple years later, again, something else happened

33:17 that she also gave police evidence on that she was linked

33:21 to. Now, according to her, she had

33:25 no knowledge of this aspect of it, but at this time, because

33:30 she was informing with these two cases, they had made her an they

33:38 had officially made her an informant, which means that

33:41 basically there is a file that only certain police officers are

33:45 aware of. So because it is completely, it

33:47 is meant to be as confidential as possible.

33:49 Who are these people? And so there were these files

33:53 from about 93 through to about 9596 saying that she was an

33:58 informant. Now later on when we get to what

34:01 what goes on with Lawyer X it, this information comes out.

34:06 And according to her, that is the first she knows that she has

34:10 been named as an informant. Victoria Police say that if it's

34:15 not in the interest of what they're investigating, legally,

34:18 they don't actually have to tell a person that they are an

34:22 informant. Right, because I would have

34:24 thought you'd have to sign off on that.

34:26 No, no. OK.

34:28 Yeah, right. It's then incumbent upon

34:31 Victoria Police to ensure that measures are taken to ensure her

34:36 safety if if that is something that she's subscribed to.

34:38 But if it's not in the interest of justice, yeah, they actually

34:41 don't have to inform the. Informer.

34:46 That they are officially on the books.

34:48 Right. OK.

34:49 So she was given a number at this point as well and all these

34:51 sorts of things. Yeah.

34:53 Now what is an informant is generally speaking, they are

34:58 also a criminal. Yes, it is very I don't.

35:01 It was fairly unheard of that someone is an informant who is

35:04 not in a criminal because what they they need basically these

35:08 informants are basically people who can say, I'll give you this

35:11 information if you overlook what I'm doing over here.

35:13 Or if I get a lesser sentence. Or yeah, because I'm whatever.

35:16 Yeah. So if I'm going to give you this

35:17 information like, you know, you don't have to help me out, you

35:19 know, later on. So if someone who's not a

35:21 criminal, they don't have that, you know that.

35:24 Incentive. Incentive to do that.

35:25 So why would someone who has all this knowledge but no take in

35:29 the game like kind of thing, what do they need to be

35:31 informing for? I guess that would generally

35:33 just be a witness. Exactly.

35:36 But then, yeah, it's it's very interesting because I think

35:41 there's a perception out there and, and look to from what I can

35:44 gather, I think this is true. I obviously don't know Nicola

35:47 Gobbo, I've never met her, but I think she very much likes to be

35:50 the centre of attention. That's very much what's been

35:52 said. Yeah.

35:53 So maybe that's why, because it, it gave her, I don't know, a

35:58 little bit of, I don't know, it made her important in the centre

36:03 of, you know, these particular, I mean, these were not great big

36:07 charges. No, not compared to what comes

36:09 later. This is sort of like a first

36:11 double in it, you know, kind of thing.

36:13 Yeah. I just find it interesting that,

36:15 I mean, for someone who's then so involved in this, you know,

36:19 later on to know that there was a history of this prior, you

36:23 kind of go, well, yeah, that speaks to the fact that you've

36:26 done this before. They don't.

36:28 You don't, don't say you don't know how this works.

36:30 Yeah. You know, so she clearly knew

36:32 what she was doing. I believe she was setting

36:34 herself up there. Yeah, just really quickly as

36:37 well. I think she says that the impact

36:40 of her father's death, so this is, it's actually really sad.

36:43 Her mum was diagnosed with non Hodgkin's lymphoma when she was

36:47 I think 9 or something like that.

36:49 Yeah. She then survived that, beat it.

36:52 Apparently, Nicola would say that, you know, she could.

36:55 I hear her mom vomiting and, you know, really unwell, but she'd

36:58 still work overnight shift. I think she was a nurse and

37:02 would still work through all of that.

37:04 And it was really, really difficult.

37:07 And then only, I think it was only about five years later, her

37:10 dad was diagnosed with the exact same condition, but he died from

37:14 it. She was only 14 when he died.

37:15 Yeah. And they had an incredibly close

37:18 relationship. So I think, you know, there's

37:20 something to play there, too, in terms of, like, seeking approval

37:24 from people, especially from men.

37:26 Like, I just feel like it's worth having that in the back of

37:28 our minds as we think about this.

37:30 It's such a formative time to lose your dad.

37:32 Yeah, crazy. Absolutely.

37:34 Like, I really feel for her and her siblings in that.

37:37 And her mum. Her mum's then left with five

37:39 kids. You know, she's been through

37:41 some very serious health issues. Her husband's then succumbed to

37:44 the same disease that she had. It's just.

37:47 That's crazy. They both end up with that.

37:49 Yeah. I mean, there's definitely like

37:51 a trait here with her where, you know, you don't do things by

37:53 halves. Like, you know, if you're going

37:55 to do something, she's going to be the best at it.

37:57 Yeah. Kind of attitude.

37:58 So, you know, whether it was being a lawyer, she was going to

38:00 be the best at that. Whether it was being an

38:02 informant, she wanted to be the best at it.

38:03 Like. So, you know, there's a lot

38:06 there to say in terms of a personality trait.

38:09 I think of that approval, that approval or comes into that, you

38:12 know, doesn't it of like that fact that, yeah, if, if I'm seen

38:16 to be the best at it, I'm, I'm, I'm doing what I told my dad I

38:19 was going to do, you know, like I'm meeting his expectations and

38:23 things. So or, you know, or even better,

38:25 you know, going above and beyond that.

38:27 So yeah, she was definitely looking for that all the time, I

38:31 think. Yeah, I think so too.

38:33 I think so too. Oh, wow.

38:35 I guess around this time. So she's practicing law.

38:42 She ended up getting her first job as a lawyer at her mentor's

38:48 law firm. So that was Alex Lewenburg, I

38:51 think his name was or is. And he says that.

38:57 So he thought the light shone out of her.

38:59 He thought she was so intelligent, so articulate.

39:02 As I said before, he was the one who pushed her to sit the bar

39:05 really early into her career, which was almost unheard of for

39:10 a woman. And he thought she was wonderful

39:15 until she started practicing at his firm.

39:18 And she, he felt like once she was kind of let go a bit.

39:22 So she was no longer a graduate. She was kind of taking on her

39:25 own clients, that she was getting really close to her

39:28 clients. She was socializing with them

39:29 outside of work. So this, this sort of pattern of

39:32 behaviour starting to establish. Yeah.

39:34 She also was seen having, like, interacting with police.

39:39 Now as a criminal lawyer, that's an absolute conflict.

39:42 Yeah, you know, and but she would do it.

39:45 And even though he would say to her, you can't do that, you

39:47 know, don't be seen out with cops.

39:49 You need to have a relationship with these people in terms a

39:52 work relationship like that you can go to certain people and get

39:55 information, you know, make sure you're getting everything turned

39:58 over to you as you know, for legally what you need.

40:00 But in beyond that and like, you know, going to the pub with them

40:03 or having, you know. Other relationships, yeah,

40:06 that's yeah. More intimate relationships, but

40:09 the same was said with her clients like and I'm talking

40:12 this is pre sort of gangland stuff.

40:15 She would go out for dinner with him and I'm not talking a client

40:17 dinner, I'm talking like a friendship or more kind of

40:21 dinner. But again, isn't that like more

40:22 approval from people too that she's seeking out there, you

40:25 know, yeah, being liked by everyone.

40:27 Yeah, the things that, you know, there's stories that come from

40:34 clients and police officers at around this time or, or

40:37 definitely sort of once we're getting into the gangland time,

40:41 that Nicola was known as a bit of a party girl.

40:43 You know, she was always up for fun.

40:45 She was always upset. I heard some quote that said,

40:47 you know, she always had her tits out and a bum ready to go

40:49 or, you know, something like that.

40:51 Like she was always very out there.

40:54 She claims she never has never taken.

40:56 Drugs, that's what she says. She claims that.

40:59 She says. That a lot of other people say

41:01 otherwise. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

41:06 Oh, it's actually, I've got the exact quote about the oh,

41:10 actually this quote came directly from Paul Dale.

41:12 We can talk. About Oh my God talking.

41:15 He said she was extroverted, long blonde hair, low cut top,

41:18 big breasts, very short miniskirts, loud.

41:21 Always wanted to be the center of attention.

41:23 Yeah. Which I mean, that's I think

41:26 that's very, very true. Yeah.

41:28 Yeah. So Paul Dale, now we need to do

41:32 a case on Paul Dale as well. Yeah, I I'm fascinated by him.

41:36 Me too. And I don't know what I think.

41:39 Yeah, I think, I think it warrants further yeah looking to

41:42 by us, but I I certainly have an immediate thing I think, but I

41:47 don't know a lot about it in order to like fully go out there

41:49 and state it. I don't.

41:50 Yeah, right. But.

41:51 He and so he's a Victor, was a Victoria Police detective, got

41:58 very, very close to Nicola during this time because she was

42:02 just really good company. They ended up having a sexual

42:05 relationship. Nicholas says they had sex

42:08 multiple times. Paul Dale says they had sex

42:11 twice. Who knows, as we said before.

42:14 He was married with kids. Yeah, like it was in his best

42:16 interest to maybe downplay that, play it.

42:22 Yeah. So he.

42:22 Was very senior. Very much.

42:24 Yeah. So he was, he was quite high up

42:26 at the time of leading the drug squad.

42:31 And so for them to be having a relationship, you know, between

42:33 a criminal lawyer and the head of like the drug squad.

42:37 Yeah, very interesting. We can go into the details of

42:40 that when we when we cover. Them, yeah.

42:42 I think because that, yeah, there is so much there, Yeah.

42:45 And it is. So it's such a convoluted story,

42:50 basically. So we're sort of now early

42:52 career for Nicola and she starts to make a bit of a name for

42:56 herself in the underworld. Now, a lot of this is because of

43:04 the law firm that she was a part of.

43:08 They definitely defended these bigger criminals.

43:12 But as I said, Mr. Lewenberg, her mentor and then employer, he

43:19 didn't like her fraternizing with the clients and with the

43:22 police, so he actually got rid of her.

43:24 Oh, shit. They they parted ways, You're

43:26 right. And she ended up practicing

43:28 separately, But she'd already, at this point, made a bit of a

43:32 name of it for herself. And clients like Tony Mokbel and

43:36 Carl Williams started to use her more and more.

43:40 Yeah, to the point where she became their lawyer, their top

43:43 lawyer. I'm sure they had multiple

43:45 because. They needed to, yeah.

43:48 But yeah, she was really, she says she was really good at

43:51 unravelling police briefs and pointing out the weaknesses.

43:53 Again, we've said that. We said that earlier on, yeah.

43:56 Any high profile or high level drug trafficking charge that was

44:02 brought upon anyone in Melbourne at the time either had Nicola

44:05 Gabo's phone number or knew how to get it.

44:07 Yeah. And so she was like that point,

44:10 go to person. And she works like 24/7.

44:13 She was constantly contactable like she was.

44:17 She really did work her ass off for these people.

44:19 There's no question in that. She put in every bit, but it was

44:23 like who was she working for at the time?

44:25 Like, you know, was she working all those hours supporting her

44:28 client or was she working all those hours and finding stuff

44:30 out and then feeding it to cops or or the other way around?

44:33 You know, like not at this. Point.

44:35 Not at this point, but yeah, point, yeah.

44:37 She got Tony so Tony Mokbel really was her first big noted

44:43 big notorious client and she was able to get him bail after 2

44:47 failed attempts by other lawyers.

44:48 So that for him was like right, she's it.

44:51 She got me bail forever. I shall be using her forever

44:56 more. Well, Tony, Tony, Tony.

44:58 Yes. The Crown prosecutor, Jeff Hogan

45:04 QC, handled most of Victoria Police's criminal trials during

45:10 that time. And as we said, there were 30

45:12 murders that took place during the criminal underworld and, or

45:16 during the gangland wars. And he often obviously crossed

45:20 paths with Nicola Gobbo. And he said she was incredibly

45:25 annoying, like really antagonistic of him and of of I

45:31 guess anyone coming up against her or her client and say she'd

45:35 be contesting an application for a DNA sample or something like

45:39 that. She would just literally not

45:43 give up. She'd talk over people.

45:45 She would. It was like she had this way of

45:47 going about it, and she'd found her success in doing that

45:52 because I. Wonder if it's a tactic in terms

45:53 like putting that other person off of their game by her being

45:57 overbearing and. Absolutely.

45:59 So he he's another one who is quoted as saying she needs to be

46:02 the centre of attention. And so he just saw this as like

46:06 courtroom theatrics. Really.

46:08 Yeah. And it worked.

46:09 It worked. I mean, she obviously had good

46:12 legal argument in there, otherwise it wouldn't have

46:14 worked. Yeah.

46:15 Yeah. Well, you'd hope.

46:17 Yeah. Surely judges would see through

46:19 theatrics. Yeah, yeah.

46:21 Because I mean, we're not talking like with all of these

46:23 things. I mean, a lot of the time

46:24 they'll either bail applications or they were, you know, plead

46:28 guilt, plead guilty and then like, you know, working out

46:30 sentences and things like that. And so it's not like she was

46:32 like in front of juries. It was judges.

46:34 Majority of the time I would say yeah, yeah, yeah, most of the

46:37 time, yeah. Often, Certainly, yeah.

46:40 Should we talk about how she was recruited as a police informant?

46:43 Yeah, yeah. Right.

46:45 So I think this happened in 2005 S the second time.

46:50 I know in 1990 three 1995, she was well, unbeknownst to her, an

46:55 informant. You know, she was informing, she

46:58 didn't know she was officially an informant, but in 2005 it

47:03 became established she was known as informant 3838.

47:07 And she, I mean, this was unprecedented in that they'd

47:13 never had a lawyer. Oh.

47:15 I don't think anywhere in the world like we're talking, this

47:17 is just not what is done ethically.

47:20 It's own, many people have looked at this over and over

47:22 again of like, like legally, I guess it's, I guess it's not

47:25 illegal, but it is, it's not ethical.

47:28 No, but the way. See, this is where I kind of

47:31 like, in some ways I'm like, OK, you've made your bed, lie in it.

47:35 Yeah. And then in other ways I'm like,

47:37 well, what the. I don't know what I, I, I don't

47:40 know. I don't know, I don't know.

47:42 But basically she says she got to a point where she was you, as

47:48 you said, she was basically working 24 hours a day.

47:50 She was on call. She couldn't not answer the

47:52 phone to these guys because they would then threaten her and

47:57 obviously had the goods. She knew they had the goods to

47:59 follow through with their thoughts.

48:01 Yeah, I mean, and saying I'd be shit.

48:03 Scared Oh my God like. Who care about your life?

48:07 Situation, no. What a stressful situation to be

48:09 in. Yeah.

48:10 So but she got to a point where she knew a lot.

48:17 She knew a lot of things that had gone on, and it was very,

48:21 very stressful. And it got to the point where

48:24 she was like, I want out, but I don't know how to get out.

48:26 I can't get out of this. Yeah.

48:28 And so she'd actually was appearing at a bail hearing, I

48:32 think for Mock Bell on this particular day.

48:35 Yeah, I'm pretty sure, yeah. And for some reason, the court

48:41 case was adjourned. It was, it wasn't her ended up

48:43 not being heard that day, which I've heard on the Grapevine or

48:46 in certain reporting that the reason for that was deliberate

48:51 and it was to kind of hook her in, right.

48:54 Whether or not I I don't know because I haven't heard that in

48:57 all of the places that I've researched.

48:59 Yeah, certain people say something else.

49:01 And yeah, it's hard. But anyway, let's let's just

49:04 what for whatever reason, court case was adjourned to another

49:07 day. And so she didn't need to be in

49:11 court that day, but she happened to bump into some cops that she

49:15 knew and she basically just let it all out and broke down.

49:21 Essentially. She was so incredibly stressed

49:24 at this time that she she felt like she needed a way out and

49:28 didn't know how to do it. These cops then put her in touch

49:32 with the hand. This particular handle couple,

49:36 she ended up having 4 handlers in the end, but two handlers in

49:39 were her main handlers. I guess put them in contact with

49:43 her because they're like Oh well she's willing to tell us this,

49:45 what's where? How far is she actually willing

49:47 to go? Yeah, because they were

49:48 desperate to, as we said, to stop these gangland.

49:52 We're talking 2000 and five, 2006.

49:54 This is at the end of the gangland war.

49:56 Things were escalating. This is after Louis Miran died,

49:59 I think, and was was killed. Yeah.

50:01 And he was like, this was the way he was executed was horrific

50:07 thinking. I mean, you know, just thinking

50:09 of all of the people who had to witness that.

50:11 Oh yeah, the innocent people who had to witness that and.

50:15 Was so brazen by that point. It was.

50:16 Just that's right and so things were escalating.

50:19 You know, Mokbel was bringing in 100 kilos of MDMA or met and you

50:24 know at a time at this point, the amount of drugs on the

50:28 streets was insane. He.

50:29 Was making like 15,000,000 a year like it's insane.

50:32 Yeah. Yeah, crazy, crazy, crazy

50:35 amounts of money and a crazy amounts of drugs that were just

50:38 out on the street. So yes, they were under a lot of

50:40 pressure to put this to bed. Yeah.

50:42 So if someone was going to give them some information, and I can

50:44 see that from the Victorian Police point of view, me too, of

50:47 like that. Like we've got to do something

50:49 here. And this is handed to them

50:52 basically on a silver platter of, like, we've got someone

50:54 who's got serious connection to all this and very much knows

50:58 their stuff. Yeah, why wouldn't you then go,

51:00 hey, we want to sit down with this person.

51:02 That's right. But it's a lawyer.

51:04 So, yeah, there is a conflict there.

51:06 You know, it's, it's, oh, it's tough.

51:10 It's really, really tough. Anyway, so her police handler

51:13 was Sergeant Stephen Fitzpatrick and he basically is the one who

51:18 coordinated her recruitment, passed her off to the handlers.

51:22 And I think look, there were there were other motivations for

51:27 her as well because not only did she want the safety and the

51:31 protection, which I don't even know how how Victoria Police

51:34 could do that given the types of people she was involved with.

51:39 No, I mean at one stage her car was.

51:41 Firearmed. Yeah, I mean, I don't even know.

51:45 I don't think, I think she has said this like no one can

51:47 protect me. Like I'm out here on my own

51:49 basically. Like there's no real genuine

51:51 protection because if the cops gave her real protection, they'd

51:54 know that that she was speaking to them.

51:57 So I don't know. But the see, then there's other

52:00 things that she talks about about when she first met her

52:06 handlers. Yeah, they organized a meeting

52:10 and obviously it had to be very secret.

52:12 If she was seen to be meeting with police, then that would

52:16 have been horrible for everyone involved, especially for Nicola.

52:20 So they ended up, they said to her, you've got to go here, get

52:24 this car, drive it to here, get in this car.

52:27 And they set up this really elaborate scheme.

52:30 And then the end point ended up being an apartment across the

52:35 road from Tony Mokbel's penthouse.

52:39 See, this is where I kind of go. Did the police want to put her

52:41 in it? That's what, that's what I

52:42 think. I'm like, surely they knew all

52:45 of his residences. I don't believe it was his

52:48 primary residence, but they would have known.

52:51 Yeah. Oh God.

52:52 Why we do like? Why the charade and and?

52:55 The thing is, she was communicating with cops.

52:57 They knew that she knew cops. She they knew she was sleeping

53:00 with Paul Dale, like, you know, So I mean, it wouldn't have been

53:03 unheard of for her to be standing around talking to cops

53:05 anyway. But then in yeah, I don't know

53:10 if she was seen talking to members of the Piranha task

53:12 force, that would be SUS. Well, she was taking information

53:17 from them back to the crooks too, so it went both ways.

53:19 But she wasn't saying that she had direct communication.

53:23 OK, I. Don't know.

53:25 Yeah, It's, it's it's. So.

53:28 Complicated and so messy, Yes. So I've spoken about her meeting

53:32 up with, like, at a building adjacent basically to Tony

53:36 Mokbel's apartment. Yeah, she said one of her

53:39 handlers, who she was trusting with her life, assured that that

53:43 first meeting wasn't being recorded.

53:46 It was. It has since come out that that

53:48 meeting was recorded. You can hear the tape.

53:50 Yeah. So if you guys want a real deep

53:52 dive into Nicola Gobbo, listen to Season 2 of The Trait, the

53:56 ABC Trace podcast with Rachel Brown.

53:58 It's fantastic. Yeah.

53:59 And in it you can hear recordings of that first meeting

54:03 of Nicola with her two police handlers.

54:06 So that's where like it gets. So where's the trust?

54:08 Yeah, this is it. I mean, you come to the end of

54:11 all of this and yeah, there's like who did what to who is

54:14 always is so like and who was in the right It's.

54:17 So murky, she says, in that in that first recorded that she

54:21 didn't know was being recorded. Yeah, meeting with them, she

54:26 says, I'm here because I've had enough and I don't know the way

54:28 out. I'm nearly 33.

54:30 What have I done with my life? Oh, by the way, yeah, just

54:33 before this as well, she had a stroke.

54:35 Oh, yes. So it was sort of a bit of a

54:37 build up of this. That's about that, Yeah.

54:39 I mean, that was due to stress and things.

54:40 She claims that, you know, that it was all so bad for her that

54:44 she had this stroke, but. But mate, that was a way out.

54:47 Like she was already at that point she was so stressed.

54:50 She was working seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

54:52 She said she used to leave her home at 6:30 in the morning.

54:54 She wouldn't be home sometimes till 1:00 in the morning again.

54:57 I've. Potentially taken a whole lot of

54:58 drugs. And God only knows what else,

55:00 like as in who's she meeting with?

55:02 And she because she was, you know, playing both sides in some

55:07 ways before this, even she it would have been so stressful.

55:12 Like had who do you know who you've told what to like?

55:15 It would be a lot to keep keep track of.

55:18 Incredibly stressful, but she kind of chose.

55:22 You make your bed like, yeah, I I get that too.

55:25 But then I also feel for her because she kind of, I don't

55:28 know, she, I feel like she almost got herself involved in

55:31 this not knowing, obviously not knowing what the outcome was

55:33 going to be. Yeah.

55:34 How How in it she was going to get.

55:38 Yes. So she had a stroke.

55:41 I think that should have been the point where she was like,

55:44 sorry, guys, I'm actually not gonna practice Laura anymore.

55:46 This is too stressful. I need out.

55:48 Yeah, I'm done. See, that's where that little

55:50 bit of narcissism kicks in of like, you know that she.

55:52 Wanted to be wanted. To be in the center of it, yeah.

55:56 I just, I just think, oh, if you had have just taken that as a

56:00 sign to be like, OK, this yeah, this is enough now.

56:04 My body's obviously not coping with this.

56:07 Yeah, I need to move on now. None of this.

56:10 We wouldn't be talking about this right now.

56:12 Absolutely. She says I'm nearly 33 and what

56:15 have I done with my life? I've had a stroke.

56:17 I get up at 6:00. I go to work by 7, spend all day

56:20 working. Very rarely do I go anywhere or

56:23 do anything. For what I know that if I was

56:25 married or if I had some other particular reason to race home

56:28 every night, I would, but at the rate I'm going, I'm going to end

56:31 up dead. She then they offered her in in

56:35 the this conversation. They then offered her a cup of

56:37 tea and she's like, I'm going to need a couple of bottles of red

56:39 wine. So she's obviously self

56:40 medicating otherwise. Yeah.

56:42 That's it. Which I kind of also get, Yes,

56:45 you'd need something I guess calm the.

56:47 Nerves. But the only friends she had

56:49 were either criminals or police officers.

56:52 Yep. Like.

56:54 Yeah, she didn't mingle out of out of that circle then I think

56:57 it was. It was 100% her life.

56:59 Yeah. And that's where, I mean, any

57:01 other lawyer would be like this is that's not how you operate.

57:04 Like her, her mentor previously, it's like, that is not how this

57:07 works. You, you have your life and you

57:09 come to work and you do your job and then you go home to your

57:13 life. Like otherwise, yeah, you're

57:15 gonna get yourself into trouble. And that's what has happened to

57:18 her. Yeah, but I mean, this is the

57:21 other thing, right? So she was so involved in her

57:25 clients lives that she was she made a speech at Carl Williams

57:30 daughter's christening. Dakota.

57:32 Yeah, Dakota Williams christening.

57:34 She's there in a that pink dress, which I think is

57:38 infamous. Everyone probably when you I

57:40 feel like when you think of Nicola Gabo, that's.

57:42 The that's the picture like, well, because either side of her

57:45 in that photo is Benji Veneman. Yeah.

57:47 And Carl Williams, I mean, and she's in that photo with, you

57:50 know, their arms are around each other and they beaming smile and

57:55 she she is one of them in that photo.

57:57 And this is the thing like she's placing herself with the

58:00 criminals in that. Like that just blows my mind.

58:04 I don't, I just really can't get my head around that.

58:07 If you're a criminal defence lawyer, that you would then be

58:11 socializing in that kind of an aspect that it could be taken by

58:16 police that you are actually a criminal with them.

58:20 Well, that's what Victoria Police say.

58:22 And yeah, they, they had that, they had that impression of her

58:25 because. She can lose her license for,

58:27 you know, not be able to practice.

58:29 If that's the case. If they could link her in some

58:31 way to being connected to any of the drugs that were being

58:34 imported and stuff like that or any of the the killings that

58:37 were happening or anything else that was going on around them,

58:40 she'd lose her license. But that wasn't, didn't seem to

58:42 be a concern for her, I don't reckon.

58:44 Like she seemed to think she had it.

58:46 It was a bit of buff. It all up.

58:48 Yeah, OK, because she had so many cops and in her back pocket

58:51 too. I know, yeah.

58:52 She was absolutely playing both sides, like even before, yeah.

58:56 Yeah. So when she was informing, I

59:00 think, I think this goes to her state of mind as well, but she

59:04 would ring her handlers. So she had two handlers.

59:07 They both had pseudonyms. One was Sandy White and the

59:10 other one was Officer Fox. They would take a minimum of 10

59:16 phone calls from her a day with information so she'd hear

59:20 something. She'd call them.

59:21 So she became as dependent on them as her clients were on her.

59:25 She claims that she informed on 350 different people.

59:31 It's true. That is true because in the

59:35 time, so I think she was only an in like by the time this all

59:40 kind of came to an end and came out maybe a year and a half,

59:44 something like that got 5000 written.

59:48 Oh, sorry, no, it was four years in total.

59:50 Sorry. Right. 5000 written reports by

59:53 Victoria Police referencing her. So Informant 30385000 reports

1:00:00 were submitted in that four years, Yeah.

1:00:02 That actually on that of how long it went on for.

1:00:05 Supposedly officially it ended in 2009, but there is record of

1:00:10 her informing up until 2012. Yeah, there's reports of

1:00:14 information that she'd given even up to 2015, but that was

1:00:18 from information she'd given previously.

1:00:20 Yeah. Yeah, her information helped

1:00:23 Victoria Police make over 400 arrests.

1:00:25 Wow. So it wasn't all for nothing.

1:00:28 Do you know what I? Mean and I think I.

1:00:30 Think a lot of. The.

1:00:31 Good that came out of this gets lost yes in the shit because the

1:00:36 shits more exciting. And this is it.

1:00:39 I mean, it's not like, and we say there's, you know, that many

1:00:41 people, that many convictions over this, which, yeah, there's,

1:00:44 there's good of that because it did, it did end the gangland

1:00:47 war, you know, like it did bring that to an end.

1:00:49 Yeah. But did it do it legally?

1:00:51 And that's OK. Did it do it legally?

1:00:53 Whatever. Look, I mean, that's not

1:00:55 whatever. I shouldn't say that that that

1:00:57 is a consideration. Yeah, but it had to come to an

1:00:59 end. This is it and that's where the

1:01:01 police, like Victoria Police stand on that in that

1:01:03 absolutely. And again, we are.

1:01:05 It is. That's the end.

1:01:06 Justify the means. Yeah, I mean, it's a hill

1:01:08 they're willing to die on, basically.

1:01:09 They're like literally like. But this ended what was going

1:01:12 on. So even if you don't agree with

1:01:14 us doing it, it got to the end that we that everyone in

1:01:17 Melbourne wanted. Absolutely.

1:01:19 And I do understand where they're coming from.

1:01:21 But. But still, these are, even

1:01:23 though they're criminals, they still have rights.

1:01:26 And so they still have the right to legal representation that

1:01:29 they can trust. Yeah.

1:01:30 And so that that's where I just kind of go, oh, you've still got

1:01:33 to do this the right way. Yeah.

1:01:35 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because there's a number

1:01:39 of convictions that have had to be looked at and gone, have gone

1:01:44 back to court and there's, and not to say like every single one

1:01:47 that has ever been, you know, convicted is it has been done

1:01:52 illegally. You know, there's definitely

1:01:53 ones that she was informing on as well saying that that they

1:01:56 could, they can say that she actually had no, no, no contact

1:02:00 with that person. They were not her client.

1:02:02 So she could, she found out things, you know, at a party not

1:02:05 acting as a lawyer and was able to share that information

1:02:08 completely. Yeah, out of her role as as

1:02:12 their representative as a lawyer.

1:02:14 So there's certainly many of these that will never get, you

1:02:17 know, looked at again. But there's a lot of cases that

1:02:19 did have to be looked at again to ensure that there was no

1:02:23 illegal action happened. In terms of her being playing

1:02:26 both sides, because it is it's illegal for her to have given

1:02:29 out that information. I mean, and it's affected big

1:02:33 cases too. So particularly as we talked

1:02:37 about Tony Mokbel, I think it was he was, there's like 3 main

1:02:42 charges on him and two of those have been quashed.

1:02:45 Yeah, so two of his convictions have been completely overturned.

1:02:49 1/3 It's still being there. Isn't it?

1:02:52 Well, yeah, so there is a retrial into the orbital case,

1:02:57 as it was called, and that was for importing a commercial

1:03:00 quantity of MDMA. Yeah, this is when he was

1:03:02 importing like 8. That's not the tomato Ecstasy 1,

1:03:05 is it? No, no, no.

1:03:06 That's a different. 1. That was in, that was €800,000,

1:03:11 a hundred kilos of MDMA. I don't think that was the

1:03:15 tomato. No, the tomato one was much

1:03:16 bigger than that. Yeah, that was the ecstasy

1:03:18 pills, Yeah. Yeah.

1:03:19 So that's going through a retrial at the moment, but.

1:03:21 But in the retrial though, obviously the anything that

1:03:25 Nicola Gobbo informed can't be used so.

1:03:29 But the reason this has gone to retrial is because they think

1:03:32 they've got enough other evidence outside of that.

1:03:35 Yeah, to get a conviction. So basically, I think, I think

1:03:39 Tony Mokbel was sentenced to something like, off the top of

1:03:42 my head, I think it was like 38 years in prison or something.

1:03:46 Or. No, actually, no, it was 40

1:03:47 years in prison, and then that got downgraded to 33 years.

1:03:50 He got some time off for something.

1:03:51 Yeah. He may now walk free, but he's

1:03:55 been in prison, I mean, since what, 2012, I think it was, or

1:03:59 something like that. Yeah, Can't remember when he was

1:04:03 arrested now. Whatever, he's been in prison

1:04:05 for a long time. I think he's served over 2000

1:04:07 days or something. OK, but he could essentially

1:04:11 walk free now, like, so OK, yes, we've got 400 other convictions.

1:04:17 Great. How many of those are then going

1:04:20 to appeal now because Nicola Gobbo was involved?

1:04:24 Yeah. We've got, well, Farooq Oman as

1:04:27 one. I mean, his was overturned as

1:04:29 well. Yeah.

1:04:29 So he was a guy who was involved in.

1:04:31 Well, there's someone else we've talked about here, Victor

1:04:33 Pierce. Yeah, supposedly he.

1:04:36 What happened with that one was that Nicola Gobbo informed,

1:04:39 basically saying that he was the driver of the car.

1:04:42 Benji Veneman was the person who shot Victor Pierce, but was

1:04:45 saying that Farooq was the driver.

1:04:47 And we talked about all that in our episode back in the.

1:04:49 We talked about pinnacles. Yeah.

1:04:51 But yeah, so but it turns out, well, according to Farooq, it

1:04:54 wasn't him. He was not in that car.

1:04:56 He was not the driver. It was just convenient for

1:04:58 Nicola to say that it was him. Yeah, at the time.

1:05:01 And so. And that's been overturned.

1:05:04 So, I mean, he wasn't wrong in in that.

1:05:06 So with that being quashed, so there's another.

1:05:08 There's one that's done. I mean, he did other things.

1:05:13 I mean he he deserved to be in jail but maybe not for that

1:05:16 particular 1 like. I mean, exactly.

1:05:20 Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

1:05:22 So just from a handler's perspective, you know, they have

1:05:26 a an obligation to ensure the safety of their informants,

1:05:31 right? Yeah.

1:05:31 Her main handler, Sandy White, was becoming increasingly

1:05:37 concerned about Nicola. He basically said that she had

1:05:43 no life outside of what she was doing.

1:05:45 So the only people, he says, the only people with a moral compass

1:05:49 she spoke to were me and the other officer.

1:05:51 Did they? Have a moral compass.

1:05:54 I think those guys, I mean, notwithstanding what they were

1:05:59 asking Nicola to do, it's going. To say because Ronnie Doles

1:06:02 would disagree. Alright, Yeah.

1:06:04 Well, yes, Yeah, again, it's ethically very great.

1:06:08 Yeah. Isn't it?

1:06:09 Because I get on one hand they wanted the outcome to be what it

1:06:12 ended up being, but then how they got there, I get it Like it

1:06:17 is. It's.

1:06:19 Does the end justify the means? She.

1:06:26 Yeah. So basically Sandy White was

1:06:28 saying that he was becoming increasingly concerned about

1:06:31 her. She lost 49 kilos.

1:06:35 She wasn't eating. She wasn't looking after

1:06:38 herself. She'd had this stroke like major

1:06:41 health issues, and she'd lost all of this weight.

1:06:45 She was just a nervous. That's a weight to lose.

1:06:47 That's a. Lot and for note she wasn't

1:06:50 doing anything No, this was just as a.

1:06:52 Totally on. Stress, stress.

1:06:54 Like, imagine the state of her body at the time.

1:06:56 Yeah. So he basically said to her, oh,

1:06:58 I'll refer you to a police psychologist.

1:07:00 Yep. That police psychologist was

1:07:04 reporting back to Sandy White and Officer Fox.

1:07:08 He was informing on her on this God.

1:07:11 So that's again that's ethically not.

1:07:14 It's not okay. It's not okay.

1:07:17 And Nicholas said she thought that there would be that.

1:07:20 That was a privileged conversation.

1:07:22 Yes. It's like, well, you know.

1:07:26 It's such a dirty world, so dirty.

1:07:29 So dirty. God.

1:07:32 She couldn't sleep, she was grinding her teeth, you know,

1:07:34 she just had so much going on. Yeah, and it was showing itself

1:07:38 physically, yes, obviously mentally it would have been an

1:07:41 absolute mind fuck, but because. She had a second stroke.

1:07:44 She did she. Did that was towards the end of

1:07:47 all this, wasn't it? That's right, yeah.

1:07:49 But again, it didn't really stop anything.

1:07:51 No. Yep.

1:07:54 So the police psychologist said she was clinically, clinically

1:07:59 depressed and potentially suicidal.

1:08:07 She Nicola admits that on 2 occasions she was absolutely

1:08:13 suicidal and if she had the means to go through with it, she

1:08:16 would have. Yeah, right.

1:08:18 I mean, Oh my gosh, I can't. I can't imagine being in that

1:08:22 state. But then I can also see like,

1:08:23 she obviously felt like she was in it so deep.

1:08:26 Yeah, that she saw no other way out.

1:08:29 Yeah, yeah, for sure. I I get I get how she would have

1:08:33 gotten to that point. Yeah, definitely.

1:08:36 I mean the pressure that she'd be on under from both sides,

1:08:40 Yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, yeah, this is

1:08:43 where it gets so messy that, as we say, she was literally

1:08:46 informing to the police with this stuff officially, and that

1:08:49 was all documented, but there was stuff that she was taking to

1:08:53 the crim's. For example, she's said to Tony

1:08:57 Mokbel, you're gonna get charged with two counts of murder.

1:09:00 So what does he do? Flee.

1:09:01 Flee, Love. This disappears off to Bonnie

1:09:06 Doone first. Bonnie.

1:09:07 Doone for a year. We're going to Bonnie Doone.

1:09:10 God, that is. Such a good movie.

1:09:12 So good. I'm rated R Why, yeah, I don't

1:09:16 know. Because I'm, he says.

1:09:18 I've cleared fucking trade 3 before.

1:09:20 Maybe is that it because that? Would be like the only thing.

1:09:23 I don't know, but I'm like, my kids are watching that.

1:09:25 Yeah. Oh, no, I keep meaning to put

1:09:26 that on. We actually put it on the list.

1:09:28 It's. Gotta get done.

1:09:29 It's gotta get done. Yeah.

1:09:31 Absolute Aussie classic, yeah. And.

1:09:33 Then you orchestrate, orchestrate this whole thing of

1:09:35 like getting out of the country because, yeah, it's it's

1:09:37 pressure being put on of where is he, where is he?

1:09:39 It actually thought already fled the country at that point, but

1:09:41 he was actually was hiding out in Bonnie Doon, which I thought

1:09:43 was pretty smart actually, Yeah. But yeah, the whole thing of him

1:09:46 like getting out of Australia and how he did that is that's

1:09:50 we'll get into another another day because it's very fun.

1:09:54 But anyway, he ends up in Greece.

1:09:55 He ends up in Greece. Yeah, and he's hiding out there.

1:09:58 He's got himself a wig, had no plastic surgery to change the

1:10:01 way he looks. The wig.

1:10:02 Yeah, the wig's great. They've just loved photos.

1:10:04 That was the the front page of the newspaper at that point in

1:10:07 time was just gold. Gold.

1:10:09 I love that gold. Yeah.

1:10:10 But anyway, in the end the AFP and Victoria Police ended up

1:10:14 finding him and yeah, bringing him back.

1:10:16 But I mean, that's, that was Nicola Golbo.

1:10:17 Yeah, that that triggered all of that.

1:10:19 I mean, the amount of money that the Victorian police paid to get

1:10:23 Tony Bob Bell back here and to find him, all those things, if

1:10:27 you think about it, yeah, that's all on Nicola Gobbo.

1:10:30 That's. And but yet she was informing to

1:10:32 the police and yeah, they were making arrests and convicting

1:10:36 crimes as well based on her information.

1:10:39 But it was equally going the other way.

1:10:41 So I just, I just does my head in.

1:10:45 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, it's, it's so bizarre and.

1:10:51 They're the ones we know about. They're the ones and there's so

1:10:53 much we don't know about. Although there was a royal

1:10:56 Commission into the management of police informants, yes, in

1:11:03 2018. And I know this is kind of

1:11:06 getting a little bit ahead, but a lot came out in that,

1:11:10 especially in relation to Nicola Gobbo and this entire Lawyer X

1:11:16 Informant 3838 situation. Yeah, she went so far as to wear

1:11:22 wires when she was having conversations with certain

1:11:24 people, even Paul Dale, somebody who she.

1:11:27 Slept with, that was one where that was a real cross of the

1:11:30 line in terms of that was actually officially she was

1:11:32 going to be a witness in that. Yeah, she wasn't an informant

1:11:35 for that. And that was where it became

1:11:37 great. Very grey because that's where,

1:11:40 yeah, publicly it would be known that was there was a lawyer who

1:11:44 had gone into that conversation wired up.

1:11:47 Yeah. And yes, no, she wasn't his

1:11:48 lawyer at the time, but yeah, she could advise him in that

1:11:51 conversation as a lawyer and therefore it's crossing those

1:11:54 lines again and the public would get knowledge of that.

1:11:57 So she really was like, I'm not I don't want to do this, I can't

1:11:59 do this because there was stuff in that conversation that he

1:12:03 never really in this. I mean you can literally listen

1:12:06 to the tape of it that. Yeah, I, I can get both

1:12:09 perspectives on he he's, he's very careful in how he says

1:12:12 things because. And then the cops were like, oh,

1:12:14 we've we've done, we've got him. But then, but then, then Nicola

1:12:17 Go was literally advising the police saying no, because if I

1:12:21 was his lawyer, I'd be like, I'd say this, I'd say this.

1:12:24 And therefore he won't get any conviction on it.

1:12:26 So. That was that was in relation to

1:12:30 the Terrance Hudson. Murder.

1:12:32 Yeah, which is very. Interesting, very interesting.

1:12:34 So when we do the Paul Dale case, we'll probably do it with.

1:12:37 The Yeah, well, that'll come into it there.

1:12:38 Yeah, for sure. That's yeah.

1:12:40 It's a very, very interesting case.

1:12:42 Yeah, yeah. I mean, she's at the end of all

1:12:46 this. And pretty much when she gets

1:12:48 this point with Paul Dale where she's wired up to talk to him,

1:12:50 that's where she goes on. And I'm, I'm not doing this.

1:12:54 So we kind of get to this point now where the the the public and

1:12:59 there are more people that are knowing kind of putting it

1:13:01 together of who she is and that she is the is lawyer X, you

1:13:05 know, which wasn't named that it's still, you know, within the

1:13:08 legal system. Kind of hang on a minute.

1:13:09 Is she is she an informal like, because too many people started

1:13:12 putting it together. So the police did back away from

1:13:14 using her entirely, but it meant that she was still under a lot

1:13:18 of pressure from that. Criminals were also working this

1:13:21 out. So Carl Williams, actually, I

1:13:23 mean, as much as people think he was stupid, that was a total

1:13:26 game on his part. He was not stupid.

1:13:30 He knew that she was informing. He called it a long time before

1:13:34 anyone else did. So she knew that she was in a

1:13:37 bit of shit and that because Carl Williams, by any means, he

1:13:39 would just get rid of her. Oh, oh, even though he she gave

1:13:43 a speech at his daughter's christening, he would absolutely

1:13:46 get rid of her if she. Was because in his mind, she's

1:13:49 double crossed. Him, absolutely.

1:13:50 Yeah. So he was all over it and she

1:13:53 knew it and it really did put her in a position.

1:13:55 So she started, she basically, she did sue the police as at a

1:14:00 point to that, that she hadn't been, you know, handled properly

1:14:03 as as an informer. And she, I think she got 2.3

1:14:05 million out of that. She did, she refused to go into

1:14:08 witness protection, which they did offer her.

1:14:10 I mean, in order to ask her if she's in witness protection,

1:14:13 obviously like, but she has adamantly said she's not in

1:14:16 witness protection and, and has never been in witness

1:14:19 protection. We don't know.

1:14:22 It's not, not for anyone else to know of what's going on there.

1:14:24 But according to the to the police and to her that she's

1:14:28 been offered witness protection, but she says she's refused that

1:14:32 and he's not. So she was offered away in terms

1:14:35 of being able to stay out of harm's way, I guess, which she

1:14:39 hasn't taken, which I just find that interesting.

1:14:41 If you really thought you were in danger, wouldn't you take

1:14:43 that option? I don't know.

1:14:45 Especially because at that point she didn't have children.

1:14:48 Well, yeah, that's that at that point.

1:14:50 Yeah. It's interesting what's happened

1:14:52 with that, since I think with children in the.

1:14:54 In the mix. It's really, really complicated

1:14:57 things. Yeah.

1:14:59 She then went on to meet The Who would the man who would become

1:15:03 the father of her children now. Richard Barker.

1:15:05 Yeah. We don't know a huge amount

1:15:07 about him, really. We believe he has had some

1:15:12 convictions of his own and potentially spent some time in

1:15:15 prison. Yeah, I don't know how much

1:15:18 time, but it was drug related. Yeah, but.

1:15:21 We don't know real specifics of it, which is fine because that's

1:15:25 that's something completely separate to this.

1:15:27 But they did have two children in very quick succession, first

1:15:30 a daughter and then a son. And around this time is when

1:15:36 Nicola, like all of this sort of lawyer ex stuff started coming

1:15:40 out. So as I said, as you were

1:15:43 saying, people knew, right? People knew Nicola Gabo was the

1:15:49 person, that she was an informant, that she was

1:15:52 basically double playing everyone and one of the

1:15:57 newspapers was going to expose the story and they found out

1:16:02 about, as in Nicola's camp, I guess, found out.

1:16:06 Oh actually, no, it was Victoria Police found out about the fact

1:16:08 that this newspaper was going to publish her name.

1:16:12 They sought an injunction, an urgent injunction, and it meant

1:16:16 that the newspaper couldn't print her name.

1:16:19 So they went with the Lawyer X title, which is now really stuck

1:16:22 with it. And it was years, years that all

1:16:27 of this was reported as Lawyer X.

1:16:29 And I still remember thinking, who?

1:16:31 Would it be who? Could it be?

1:16:34 But those I mean those in. The those in the no.

1:16:36 They knew for sure. Well, I mean our good friend Ron

1:16:40 Idols, he famously was sent to Bali actually where she was

1:16:45 hiding out during all this time where it was sort.

1:16:47 Of like, she should be named on holiday.

1:16:49 Yeah, she needed a break. Yes, this is after the second

1:16:52 stroke. She had the two children.

1:16:54 Yeah, she needed a break and Victoria Police, well, we like,

1:16:59 we can't stop her from going overseas.

1:17:01 Like we actually, there's no reason we can stop her.

1:17:04 No, we kind of need eyes on her. So Ron Needles being, you know,

1:17:08 the the person he was. Well, he actually needed to go

1:17:11 and interview her about a particular case.

1:17:13 So there was something that which was completely above

1:17:14 board. It was, yeah, something, I can't

1:17:16 remember exactly which case it was, wasn't a big one or by any

1:17:19 means. It was just something that he

1:17:20 needed some information on that she was willing to give.

1:17:24 And so he went over there and met up with her to do this and

1:17:27 in talking to her realized, put two and two together and went

1:17:32 fuck your lawyer X. And so he actually said to her

1:17:37 he'd already got her statement. And he this is where I just love

1:17:40 him. His integrity is so. 2nd to

1:17:43 none, second to none, he said. He reckons he would 100% because

1:17:48 he just called it out and he goes, Oh my God, he said it to

1:17:50 her. He wasn't like it by any means

1:17:52 keeping this information that he had realized.

1:17:54 He said to her by you signing this, you know that this is

1:17:57 going to come out that you by what you've said, this is going

1:18:00 to link you to everything else. I don't think you should sign

1:18:03 it. And he actually talked her out

1:18:06 of signing it like as in he was when she realized too she was

1:18:09 that she was like going to be outing herself.

1:18:11 She was like hesitant then, but he reckoned if he used his

1:18:14 skills that he has 'cause he has such good insight in people, he

1:18:17 knows how to work people, He could have got her to sign it.

1:18:19 Mm Hmm. But he was like, I'm not gonna

1:18:22 make this happen. And he walked away from being

1:18:24 sent over there to do this job. I mean, I mean, that's if you

1:18:27 turn police money. To get a.

1:18:28 Signed to get a signed statement from her and.

1:18:31 He's told not to come back without a signed statement.

1:18:33 Yeah, he came back without it. We would come up with a

1:18:36 statement, but not signed and said to he went to the bigwigs.

1:18:39 He went into like Simon Overland's office, the

1:18:43 commissioner at the time at the time, yeah.

1:18:44 And said, you motherfuckers, this is she's lawyer X and you

1:18:49 guys are going to get screwed here.

1:18:51 And not only that, there's going to be people who get out of jail

1:18:53 back because of The Who. I like the fact that she's who

1:18:56 this person is. Yep, he called it.

1:19:00 I just have so much respect. For him.

1:19:01 Oh, me too. Got it.

1:19:02 Just he's the best. Yeah.

1:19:04 Yeah, Actually the best. Yeah.

1:19:07 So Nicolas, then come, obviously come home from this holiday that

1:19:11 wasn't really a holiday, I guess in the end.

1:19:13 Yeah. And it was actually not until

1:19:18 all of the Hudson murder stuff came out.

1:19:20 Yeah. That her name was implicated in

1:19:22 all of this. And it was found out by everyone

1:19:26 that Nicola Gabo, Lawyer X Yeah. Now, this put her in a really,

1:19:32 really dangerous situation. So of course, we know, like the

1:19:36 likes of Karl and I would imagine turning Mark.

1:19:38 Well, people would know. Yeah.

1:19:40 But nothing was done because it wasn't widely known, right.

1:19:44 She still feared for her life. She's still.

1:19:47 Yeah. Because at this point, Karl

1:19:48 Williams was dead too. Yeah, yeah, he'd already been

1:19:50 stabbed in prison. Which they, which there's

1:19:53 questions around who call that, which again, is she linked to

1:19:57 that, you know, like questions around questions around that

1:20:00 around, you know, like what, what, how much participation

1:20:04 does she have in this? We don't know.

1:20:08 Who's who's porn? Who's strings?

1:20:10 We don't really know, don't know.

1:20:12 Because there's so much cover up and so much muddiness around all

1:20:15 of this. Yeah, Yeah.

1:20:17 So she basically is. She has no choice, really, but

1:20:23 to flee. Yeah.

1:20:25 Absolutely. It has been reported that she

1:20:30 has lived in I think 7 different countries over the last.

1:20:33 How? That was in 2016.

1:20:37 Did she leave anyway? When, whenever she left?

1:20:42 So she's got her two young children with her.

1:20:44 I believe at this point her the father of her children was in

1:20:47 prison. So she left with the two

1:20:49 children. They well, she says they are

1:20:52 essentially stateless because wherever they're living, they

1:20:56 don't they're not resident permanent residents.

1:20:58 They don't have any rights in those countries.

1:21:01 You know, access to Healthcare is expensive.

1:21:04 Access to education for her children is really tricky and

1:21:09 it's she's got no help. She's a single mum in a foreign

1:21:13 country with two young children who are relying on her.

1:21:16 All she wants is to return to Australia where she's got

1:21:20 support and help, but she wants police protection to do so.

1:21:24 The police say that if and when she returned to Australia that

1:21:28 they would remove her children because in the best interest of

1:21:33 those children, their mother was coming into this country with a

1:21:37 target on her head and putting them at risk.

1:21:40 Putting them at risk, so. I find that really, I mean, I

1:21:43 heard one of the things she says about that, which I find really

1:21:45 interesting, is that like for example, the Moran's who had

1:21:50 children and you know, Jason Moran had children and he was

1:21:52 shot at Auskick kind of stuff that well, why didn't they take

1:21:56 his children away? They knew that he was, you know,

1:21:58 kind of under the pump and potentially going to be that's

1:22:00 what. Nicholas.

1:22:01 Says that's what Nicholas says, which I I tend to agree with

1:22:03 that like why aren't you taking off all these crim's who are

1:22:06 likely to shoot each other and kill each other?

1:22:08 Why you're not going around taking all their kids off them?

1:22:10 But if I convenient. If she's not in the country.

1:22:13 I really do. I think that there's a little

1:22:15 bit of, you know, no, we want you to stay over there out of

1:22:18 sight. I don't mind because if she

1:22:20 comes back and she does start talking.

1:22:22 I think there's stuff for sure. I think there probably is stuff

1:22:26 that people don't. And when I say people, I'm

1:22:28 thinking maybe Victoria Paul might not want coming out and

1:22:31 she's she's talking. Well, she is.

1:22:33 She has spoken to a number of journalists, but she is very

1:22:36 careful in how she speaks. And I find it very interesting,

1:22:40 one of the more recent interviews she's done, which is

1:22:43 that Trace podcast. Yeah, that with Rachel.

1:22:46 Brown. Yes.

1:22:47 Rachel Brown. Yeah.

1:22:49 So you watch the video of that, She dresses herself very plain

1:22:55 down. Yeah.

1:22:56 No makeup. Like pretty like actually no

1:22:59 makeup sort of stuff. And she knew she was being

1:23:01 filmed for 7:30. So Rachel Brand did the Trace

1:23:04 podcast. She was also, she filmed an

1:23:06 interview for Seven 3730 Report. Yeah.

1:23:09 And no, that was. No, I think that was.

1:23:13 Oh, no, Four Corners. It was a Four Corners.

1:23:15 Yeah. They used some of the footage in

1:23:16 Four Corners. Yeah.

1:23:17 So like, I mean, yeah, she knew she was being filmed, all those

1:23:19 sorts of things. And I just find like, you know,

1:23:21 it's the lawyer and her coming out like she advised her clients

1:23:24 similarly like to dress a certain way to, you know.

1:23:26 Elicit. Elicit a certain response yeah,

1:23:28 and she certainly tries to do that in that and I find it

1:23:30 really obvious to be personally, I do personally like and even

1:23:34 the way she. Especially because you look at

1:23:35 the way she would dress when she was a lawyer, like she was

1:23:38 always very her style, her sense of style is very out there and

1:23:42 very like overdone, you know, like always.

1:23:45 Obvious like. Always with the full face of

1:23:48 makeup, her hair's always in this like big sort of this big

1:23:51 blonde mop on top of her head and or she.

1:23:55 Looks dowdy and, you know, and it's like, feel sorry for me

1:23:59 yeah. You know, I really do think

1:24:01 she's trying to elicit that kind of response from viewers.

1:24:03 And particularly even how she answers certain questions, it's

1:24:07 that she, Rachel's very good. She's not coming at it from an

1:24:10 angle of I'm on her side or any that she does really push her on

1:24:13 things and she's asking some pretty hard questions of her and

1:24:17 the way she like talks around and doesn't answer questions.

1:24:20 And he's all like, oh, but I don't know, like leave me alone.

1:24:25 And it's you're not that person. That is not who you are and it's

1:24:28 not how you know 95% of other people describe you.

1:24:32 This is you're putting on something here and I that's

1:24:35 where I just don't then go. I don't trust you.

1:24:37 But I reckon she's got information that I just say

1:24:42 Victoria Paul do not want coming out and she knows it because she

1:24:47 and she's trying to use it to her advantage and it's not

1:24:50 working. So, yeah, it's, it's it's

1:24:56 interesting. In that interview, Rachel Brown

1:24:58 asked said like, whether she thinks it's worth it.

1:25:01 Yeah. And she says, look where I am.

1:25:03 No, it wasn't obviously. Like, I mean, I say obviously,

1:25:08 but then I mean. For her personally, probably for

1:25:10 the greater good of Melbourne, maybe it was, but.

1:25:15 She says she was used, abused and kicked to the curb.

1:25:18 Not just kicked to the side of the road, but run over, reverse

1:25:21 the car back and run over again by Victoria fully.

1:25:25 Look, I don't disagree, but at the same time I think she kind

1:25:28 of chose, she made her choices. I.

1:25:29 Just don't really know what else she expected.

1:25:32 No, that, that's what I mean, yeah.

1:25:33 It's like what? There there was really no other

1:25:36 outcome in this. No, that's yeah, exactly.

1:25:39 Yeah, and she's a smart, a very, very intelligent woman.

1:25:42 Yeah, I mean, I think there's Victoria poll people who also

1:25:45 say, like, if criminals wanted her dead, she'd be dead.

1:25:48 Yeah, and she's not. Yeah, why?

1:25:52 Maybe I don't really care. Or maybe they know that she's

1:25:57 got stuff that can help them as well.

1:26:00 I, I don't know, I don't know. So as I said before, there was a

1:26:04 royal Commission into the management of police informants

1:26:08 after this, because obviously this was an incredibly ethically

1:26:11 grey area and it needed to be looked into.

1:26:15 The Commission was first established in 2018 and it was

1:26:20 led by Commissioner Margaret McMurdo.

1:26:23 So they looked into like how she became an informant, which

1:26:27 convictions were compromised, and I believe there were like

1:26:30 1000 cases that she was involved with and they determined that

1:26:35 for about 300 of those cases could potentially be impacted.

1:26:42 They looked into the failures in Victoria Police's oversight and

1:26:46 the legal disclosure practices in terms of managing informants.

1:26:51 They found that there were systematic failures, lack of

1:26:55 oversight, inadequate checks and improper use of confidential

1:26:59 information. There were 111 recommendations

1:27:03 made at the end. At the end of the royal

1:27:06 Commission there was legislation, recommendations of

1:27:11 legislation to be made with regard to human sources

1:27:15 oversight, so they said they should be.

1:27:18 There should have been a public interest monitor in terms of

1:27:21 overseeing all of this stuff so that it's not just managed by

1:27:24 one organization and a member essentially of the public.

1:27:28 Yeah, disclosure reforms to protect those who are accused

1:27:32 and legal profession guidance and monitoring for the

1:27:36 informant. Yeah.

1:27:38 And that's independent legal advice.

1:27:40 They absolutely need that. Yeah.

1:27:42 Because otherwise Victoria Police can say to them, oh,

1:27:45 yeah, we'll give you, I don't know, 20 years off your sentence

1:27:48 if you're if you're convicted of this.

1:27:50 There's nothing. Those people, that person who's

1:27:52 taking that on is trusting in Victoria Police.

1:27:55 They have no legal representation because they then

1:27:57 at this point are not allowed to.

1:27:59 No, it's allowed to know that they're an informant.

1:28:01 Yeah, now they're saying that those people should have

1:28:05 independent. Legal counsel, yeah.

1:28:10 I don't know. It makes it very interesting.

1:28:15 I guess it make it can make it very difficult, I think for

1:28:19 Victoria Police to then have people come forward.

1:28:22 Yeah, I mean, obviously there was very valuable information in

1:28:27 this, but other informants, you know, that are linked to this

1:28:31 case even that are what genuine informants.

1:28:35 If it makes it more challenging to get those people even on

1:28:39 board to do these things, there's many convictions that

1:28:42 won't happen and we could end up in a total shit show.

1:28:44 And our our legal system is already enough in a shit show.

1:28:47 Oh. Imagine if we had all of those.

1:28:50 Yeah, I know Victoria under police.

1:28:53 Sorry. Victoria Police undertook some

1:28:55 of the recommendations and in 2023 they enacted the Human

1:29:01 Source Management Act. So the way that Victoria Police

1:29:04 from 2023 onwards handles their informants has changed and it's

1:29:12 a much more structured. There's outlines requirements,

1:29:15 the it's audited now and there are there is greater governance

1:29:22 over how they go about that and what they're allowed to do

1:29:27 within the confines of that. But the, the, I guess it's a lot

1:29:32 more strict and tight in terms of what they can and can't do

1:29:34 with an informant and the expectations of an informant.

1:29:37 So that's a positive, I suppose that's come out of this.

1:29:40 Yeah. And then I guess the legal

1:29:42 profession, you know, there's got to be awareness around

1:29:47 ethical boundaries and where that falls.

1:29:51 Yeah, confidentiality and then these dueling relationships,

1:29:54 these dueling priorities that she had, you know, it's yeah,

1:29:59 there's a lot there. I don't believe that.

1:30:01 I personally don't think the police should approach.

1:30:03 I should have ever approached her about being an informant.

1:30:05 I absolutely do think that's that's wrong.

1:30:08 They got her. In a moment of weakness, though,

1:30:10 didn't they like when they When she signed on, she was at the

1:30:15 end, she was. But this and that's that.

1:30:16 Well, I mean, you've got to be of sound mind and to be able to

1:30:20 make those decisions. And she wasn't.

1:30:23 I I did hear something. Now, I don't know whether this

1:30:25 was corroborated or not, but someone said something about

1:30:29 Victoria Police hearing that she'd had a stroke.

1:30:32 This was before she'd actually become an informant, heard that

1:30:36 she'd had a stroke, and considered sending a handler in

1:30:43 there to try and recruit her while she was recovering from

1:30:46 the stroke. It didn't end up happening.

1:30:48 It didn't end up happening, but. Even the thought the.

1:30:51 Thought of it. It's that's so wrong.

1:30:54 I mean, yeah, as I say what the outcome of all this was.

1:30:57 I mean, I'm all for the fact that like these gangland wars

1:30:59 were stopped and like that they got results.

1:31:02 But I don't agree with the fact that they recruited a lawyer, a

1:31:06 criminal lawyer at that, to be informing on their clients.

1:31:10 I Yeah. I guess the big question is how?

1:31:14 How would Victoria Police have maintained, and I guess Nicola

1:31:21 Gober have maintained the ethical standards that are

1:31:25 expected of both while also fighting organized crime?

1:31:30 I don't know. I'm so keen to hear what people

1:31:34 think. Yeah, I really.

1:31:36 Am it is a real yeah, a moral and ethical minefield.

1:31:42 Yeah. So please let us know.

1:31:43 I really am curious to see what people think like because I can

1:31:48 see I can see things from both sides in a lot of ways.

1:31:52 Yeah, yeah. The system is at fault,

1:31:59 actually. You know what?

1:32:00 Let's just make you bad, you go jail, yeah.

1:32:03 Easy, Easy done. Easy, easy done.

1:32:07 Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, you know, it's it's a bit

1:32:10 mental, that one. It really is.

1:32:12 Oh, it really is. As we said earlier, if you want

1:32:15 to know more about this case in a lot more depth, The Trace

1:32:19 Season 2 Season 1 is the case of Maria James, which we've done a

1:32:24 case on as. Well, so I haven't done OK.

1:32:26 Go back and listen to that if you want to.

1:32:27 But season 2 is, is Nicola Gobbo Lawyer X.

1:32:31 And then there's the 7:30 report and a Four Corners episode about

1:32:35 this. And then there's countless other

1:32:37 things that you can find about it as well.

1:32:40 But if you want to hear directly from Nicola's mouth, they're

1:32:42 they're the three sources to. Go to.

1:32:45 That's interesting to then hear her perspective.

1:32:47 But yeah. I think so, but.

1:32:48 If you're looking for entertainment on this, there's

1:32:50 obviously the Underbelly series of you know that you can check

1:32:52 out and there's there is there's a two-part miniseries literally

1:32:56 just on lawyer X, which is actually not a bad watch.

1:32:59 I've been in a while, but yeah, it's actually pretty good.

1:33:01 It's not there are non factual, it's thrown in and timelines a

1:33:05 little out and also. They've combined a couple of

1:33:08 characters just for the sake of the story, so it's not exactly

1:33:12 factual. Yeah, it is.

1:33:14 Interesting. You get a pretty good idea of

1:33:15 what what went on in, you know, in that sense.

1:33:17 I think it gives you a vibe of the time.

1:33:19 Definitely, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:33:22 It's it's it's worth a watch for sure.

1:33:24 Like I actually want to go back and watch all the Underbelly

1:33:26 series now. They're so.

1:33:27 Good. That blend of them.

1:33:29 Yeah. All right.

1:33:31 Anything else to add before we finish up for today?

1:33:33 Think we're good? OK, next week we're going to be

1:33:37 talking about the Amy Lynn Bradley.

1:33:40 Yeah. Well, this is a yeah.

1:33:41 I don't know a lot about this. I know a little bit about it and

1:33:45 I'm actually really keen to get into research.

1:33:47 I've actually been putting off listening to certain things that

1:33:49 I've. I've heard about things that go,

1:33:51 oh, I want to read, I want to read this.

1:33:52 I'll listen to that in the. But I'm like during the week

1:33:54 when I'm actually researching. Yeah.

1:33:56 Because I'm like, Oh no, I'm sorry.

1:33:57 I'm excited to get into that one too, because it's yeah.

1:34:01 Me too, crazy. Me too.

1:34:03 All right, thank you everybody for joining us.

1:34:05 Please go ahead and like us on the socials.

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1:34:14 go out. Actually, it will probably

1:34:15 already be out when the episode comes out, so you can do so at

1:34:20 patreon.com/two Crime Besties. That's it.

1:34:25 For some reason we're not like when you search for it on an

1:34:28 Apple phone, we believe it's not coming up.

1:34:30 So we'll try and get on to fixing that for some reason.

1:34:32 That exactly if. You put in that link, you will

1:34:34 absolutely find as it will come straight to us that's.

1:34:37 It yes, All right, thank you for joining us again.

1:34:40 Stay curious, crime besties. Bye.