Gangland war survivor Wrout faces jail term, by Steve Butcher - The Age - 31st October 2008

One of the few and very lucky survivors of Melbourne's gangland war is fighting a new battle - for his liberty.

With most of the war's players dead or in jail or still looking over their shoulders, Bert Wrout now stares down the barrel of an immediate prison sentence.

Wrout, 66, was shot and seriously wounded when two gunmen burst into the Brunswick club in March 2004.

He was blasted by a man who cannot be named while Wrout's friend and drinking companion, crime figure Lewis Moran, was shot and killed.

Evangelous Goussis, who pleaded not guilty, was convicted earlier this year of the murder and of causing Wrout serious injury.

Wrout lost his spleen, suffered damage to his liver and kidney and has pulmonary tract problems.

Wrout was excused from giving evidence at Goussis' trial, and today in Melbourne Magistrates Court, claimed he was unfit to answer a series of serious driving charges.

If the charges are heard and Wrout is convicted, he faces an immediate four-month term from a suspended sentence in March, which has allegedly been breached by further offending.

His lawyer, Jim Buchecker, said Wrout had been found unfit to plead by a pyschologist in September.

He tendered a series of medical reports including one that found Wrout could not give meaningful legal instructions.

Wrout was found to be mentally fragile, confused, incoherent, anxious and stressed.

But police prosecutor, Senior Constable Clive Dutton, argued that Wrout's fears of being murdered, as expressed by psychologist Bernard Healy, have now passed and were irrelevant to the driving charges.

Magistrate Simon Garnett said Wrout's application to be declared mentally unfit to plead required a full, proper and independent investigation.

He adjourned the hearing until February for Wrout to be assessed by a forensic psychologist.

(Credit: The Age)

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Film Review: Quantum of Solace , by Ray Bennett - The Hollywood Reporter - 24th October 2008

Bottom Line: All-out thriller with few Bond touches but plenty of high-octane action.

Opens: Friday, Oct. 31 (U.K.); Friday, Nov. 14 (U.S.)

LONDON -- The meanest and leanest James Bond film yet, "Quantum of Solace" is a breathless splash of high-speed action that hurtles from one reckless chase to another.

There's not much solace and few words as the British secret agent exercises his license to kill in dispatching one bad guy after another in the attempt to avenge the death of the lover who died in "Casino Royale."

Fans of that boxoffice smash and the earlier films might be disappointed that the new picture allows hardly any flourishes of style and character in the 007 tradition, but moviegoers seeking an adrenaline rush will be well pleased. Running almost 40 minutes shorter than the bloated "Casino Royale," the film should do bristling business around the world.

So much of the movie comprises furious pursuits in boats, planes and racing automobiles that director Marc Forster owes huge thanks to his talented technical crew. Second unit director Dan Bradley and stunt coordinator Gary Powell, both "Bourne" veterans, must take a large chunk of the credit for all the thrilling encounters that leave credibility in the dust.

Forster's regular cinematographer Robert Schaefer and Oscar-winning production designer Dennis Gassner ("Bugsy") contribute fine work and the intricate assembly by editors Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson is staggeringly effective. A gunfight cut against a lavish performance of "Tosca" is an action triumph.
Jack White's title song passes without notice, but composer David Arnold provides a top-flight action score, keeping the familiar themes to a minimum as they hardly suit Daniel Craig's Bond.

Craig looks incredibly fit, and his manner suggests someone capable of surviving everything that's thrown at him. This Bond is more invincible than ever and shares with Jason Bourne and the kite runner the unerring ability to know exactly where the object of his chase will end up.

Judi Dench has a few good scenes tearing a strip off her favorite agent, and Olga Kurylenko has some serious action of her own, which she renders in high style. Gemma Arterton, however, is a mere bedroom dalliance, and Mathieu Amalric ("The Diving Bell and the Butterfly") tends to let his character's madness show too much with bulging eyes, one of which threatens to start blinking at any moment.

There are the usual lavish locales, and the film is as efficient as its supercomputers and high-powered weaponry and as sleek as the glamorous settings where Bond catches his breath. There is a danger in this version of Ian Fleming's hero, however. A killer in the movies needs something redeeming about him. Bourne had presumed innocence, and Sean Connery's Bond, while nasty, had ironic wit. Craig's humorless Bond is in danger of becoming simply a very well-dressed but murderous thug.

Production companies: Danjaq, United Artists, Columbia Pictures.
Cast: Daniel Craig, Olga Kurylenko, Mathieu Amalric, Judi Dench, Giancarlo Giannini, Gemma Arterton, Jeffrey Wright; Director: Marc Forster; Screenwriters: Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis & Robert Wade; Producers: Barbara Broccoli, Michael G. Wilson; Executive producers: Callum McDougall, Anthony Waye; Director of photography: Roberto Schaefer; Production designer: Dennis Gassner; Music: David Arnold; Costume designer: Louise Frogley; Editors: Matt Chesse, Richard Pearson.

Rated PG-13, running time 106 minutes.

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CBS "60 Minutes" Segment On Online Poker Cheating Scandals To Air Soon!

In addition to the buzz around the seizure of 141 internet gambling domains by the Governor of Kentucky, an upcoming story by CBS’ “60 Minutes” has also been the center of discussion at the CAP Euro Barcelona event. Poker News Daily has learned that the story by “60 Minutes” should air on Sunday, October 26th, just days before the general elections in the United States. The program will likely cover the user scandals at Ultimate Bet and Absolute Poker, which have made headlines across the poker world in recent months.

The story by the longstanding news magazine will focus on the scandals that have rocked Ultimate Bet and may include the POTRIPPER issues at its sister site, Absolute Poker. In addition, the rumor around the industry is that “60 Minutes” is teaming up with a major newspaper for the story, which may be just weeks from airing. In its last update on the NioNio scandal that rocked the online poker site, Ultimate Bet listed additional user names that were involved: Crackcorn55, WhakMe, GrabBag123, gravitation, Bgroup, H_Curtis, Twenty 1, WacoManiac, Broke_In_L_A, ShaqTack, BlueBerry101, HolyMucker, 55WasHere, Xnomas, dannyboy55, Indy05, and SlimPikins2.

The cheating on Ultimate Bet began back in 2005, one year before its current ownership group, Tokwiro, purchased the site. Also in June, Ultimate Bet was scheduled to begin the refund process for players who were affected by the abuse. The transgressions surrounded the exploitation of an auditing tool which enabled its users to view the hole cards of every player at an online poker table.

In May, Ultimate Bet’s parent company released a statement that included the following: “We would like to thank our customers for their patience, loyalty, and support, as well as for their understanding that we are doing everything we can to correct this situation. The staff and management of Ultimate Bet are fully committed to providing a safe and secure environment for our players and we want to assure customers of our unwavering resolve to monitor site security with every resource at our disposal.”

Since then, one of the accounts in question was linked to a Las Vegas owned home of Russ Hamilton, one of the former owners of the site. However, no admission has been given publicly by Hamilton. Over the summer, Team PokerStars Pro member Barry Greenstein and Joe Sebok traveled to Hamilton’s residence. Greenstein came away from the interview feeling as if, by the time the truth was known, Hamilton would not be one of those indicted.

A $75 million claim filed against a software manufacturer was the subject of an article by MSNBC with the title “Poker site cheating plot a high-stakes whodunit.” The article, which was published last week, seemed to trump any momentum “60 Minutes” would have had, although the television station’s program is likely to be more visible.

The latest move in the Ultimate Bet investigation was the Kahnawake Gaming Commission naming Frank Catania, a former gaming regulator in the state of New Jersey, to lead a formal inquiry into the matter. His website, CataniaConsulting.com, states that he “serves as one of three independent directors of eCOGRA. He served as the first president of the International Masters of Gaming Law, a non-profit association dedicated to the education and advancement of gaming law, vice chair and chair, respectively, of the International Association of Gaming Regulators and past chairman of the Forum of American Casino Regulators.”

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Shooting starts for second Underbelly series - The Australian - 17th October 2008

A second series of the acclaimed Underbelly TV drama went into production today dogged by the question of whether it would it be as good as the original. Underbelly - A Tale of Two Cities will focus on the illegal drug trade in the 1970s, a long way from the more recent Melbourne drug wars portrayed in the hit series which aired on Nine this year. Instead of Carl and Roberta Williams the villains will be Aussie “Bob” Trimbole and Terry “Mr Asia” Clark.

Announcing the start of start of production in Sydney and Melbourne, the head of drama for the Nine Network Jo Horsburgh said “the series is proving to be as rich and exciting as the first series”. Nine is desperate to make Underbelly 2 the hit it was the first time around. Other Nine dramas this year, including Canal Road and The Strip have not fared so well. It wasn’t screened in Victoria until recently because it may have influenced the outcome of a trial.

Comparisons between Underbelly 1 and 2 are inevitable. Producers Screentime have been under pressure to come up with a prequel or a sequel ever since Nine attracted big audiences for Underbelly earlier this year. Should it be a prequel looking at the same Melbourne criminals when they were younger or a sequel now they’re all dead or in jail?

Eventually, producers decided to go right back to another rich period in Australia’s criminal history between 1976 and 1986 - but many younger viewers were not alive when anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay was a household name.

Screentime’s executive producer Des Monaghan emphasised the series would be an improvement and not a disappointment: “We are very excited about Underbelly - A Tale of Two Cities - which promises to be even bigger and better than the first series”.

Actors Roy Billing (Trimbole), Andrew McFarlane (anti-drugs campaigner Donald Mackay) Matthew Newton (Terry Clark) and Peter O’Brien (George Freeman) have already been cast.

(Credit: The Australian)


Greg Tingle comment

I think the second series is likely to be as good, but not quite as popular as the original. There’s only even one first and the massive media and public buzz, fueled by then current criminal proceedings, backed up by frequent reference to Network Nine in the courts and the papers, all point to that equation. David Gyngell at the team at Nine have hit the jackpot with Underbelly, and let’s hope it doesn’t get prostituted to Crocodile Dundee III depths, where it makes money (again) at expense to its legacy and overall high production standards. Great to see Matthew Newton cast this time around (as everyone knows its going to be a winner, as opposed to an unknown quantity last time the cattle call was done), and it would be something to see Newton right there in the mix with Reb, Gyton Grantly (Carl), Westaway (Gatto) and the crew. I wonder if there’s going to do much with the storyline on my old mate Bert Wrout, who teases that he knows where a number of the bodies are buried! Sometimes the real news doesn’t make the news, as in some matters revolving around Wrout, however Australia eagerly awaits the next installments of prime time gangsters and mobsters Aussie style down under. Not sure what its going to do for Australia’s image on the tourism front, but that’s another story. I don’t foresee Baz getting dragged into advertising or PR scenarios for this portray of some of Australia’s society happenings. Maybe we can expect to see a dash of product placement re Packer’s Crown Casino, or maybe they don’t want to get quite that real to the true story of Melbourne’s underworld? If this show doesn’t fire up James’ passion for Australian television, nothing will. It’s all good fodder for the papers and should keep Nine out of the doldrums it was in a few years ago.

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O. J. Simpson Found Guilty in Robbery Trial, By Steve Friess - The New York Times - 4th October 2008

LAS VEGAS — A jury here Friday night found O. J. Simpson guilty on all counts in his robbery and kidnapping trial, a verdict that came 13 years to the day after Mr. Simpson was acquitted in the highly publicized murders of his ex-wife and her friend.

The 12 charges that Mr. Simpson faced stemmed from a September 2007 confrontation in a casino hotel room in which he and five cohorts departed with hundreds of items of sports memorabilia.

In the courtroom as the verdict was read, Mr. Simpson showed no emotions. He was led away in handcuffs and taken into custody. His sister, Carmelita, who was sitting in the front row, broke down in tears.

The items were in the possession of two memorabilia dealers, Bruce L. Fromong and Alfred Beardsley, who were led to believe a prospective buyer was coming to browse the goods. Instead, Mr. Simpson and his group burst into the room and, according to several witnesses, at least one gun was brandished.

The jury of nine women and three men, who deliberated for 13 hours, mulled weeks of testimony as well as hours of surreptitious audio recordings of the planning and execution of the event by Thomas Riccio, a memorabilia auctioneer who arranged the confrontation.

Mr. Simpson, 61, and a co-defendant, Clarence Stewart, 54, are facing 15 years to life on the kidnapping charge.

Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 5.

Mr. Simpson has said he was seeking to retrieve only personal keepsakes like ceremonial footballs from his Hall of Fame N.F.L. career and photos of his family that years ago were taken from his home; the prosecutors said he should have filed a civil lawsuit to regain the items if they were, in fact, stolen from him.

“We don’t want people going into rooms to take property,” said David Roger, the Clark County district attorney who led the prosecution. “That is robbery. You don’t go in and get a gun and demand property from people.”

Four of the 24 witnesses who testified were the other men who accompanied with Mr. Simpson and Mr. Stewart, all of whom have accepted plea deals from prosecutors in exchange for testimony. Two of those men, Walter Alexander and Michael McClinton, carried guns in the incident and one, Mr. McClinton, testified that he did so at Mr. Simpson’s request.

Mr. Simpson said he did not know the two would carry weapons and never saw any guns displayed during the incident.

The proceedings failed to capture the intense public interest that turned Mr. Simpson’s 1995 trial into the so-called Trial of the Century. That spectacle became a racial touchstone and turned a list of legal analysts including Greta Van Sustern, Jeffrey Toobin and Star Jones into television stars. Few of the news media stars involved in that case flocked to this one, although Dominick Dunne of Vanity Fair was a notable exception. Marcia Clark, the former prosecutor who failed to convict Mr. Simpson in 1995 did not appear despite securing media credentials to report for Entertainment Tonight.

The case played out against the backdrop of a nation more interested in the presidential election campaign and the nation’s economic crisis. It also featured victims who were far less sympathetic: two middle-aged memorabilia dealers who tried to profit from their roles in this case by trying to sell their stories to the tabloid media.

The defense focused much of its efforts on discrediting Mr. Fromong, Mr. Beardsley and the four men who assisted Mr. Simpson and Mr. Stewart in the alleged robbery. On several occasions, Simpson attorneys Yale Galanter and Gabriel Grasso caught those witnesses in apparent contradictions, as when Mr. Fromong insisted he did not try to sell his story despite audio recordings immediately after the incident in which Mr. Fromong is heard saying: “I’ll have ‘Inside Edition’ down here tomorrow. I told them I want big money.”

A measure of the limited public interest in the case may be that Frederic Goldman, the father of Ronald Goldman, admitted he followed the proceedings “only generally” from his home in Phoenix. Still, with a verdict coming he sharpened his focus.

“At the absolute least, I’d like to see him in jail,” Mr. Goldman said Friday of Mr. Simpson. “He’s not going to get the punishment for Ron’s murder that he deserved, but at least he should be in jail for as long as they can put him there.”

While Mr. Simpson’s acquittal in the 1994 murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, was never discussed during the trial, it hung over the proceedings. Jurors were quizzed extensively before their selection about their views of that trial, and references were made in some of the audio recordings to the fact that Mr. Simpson owes the estate of Ms. Simpson and Mr. Goldman $33.5 million because in 1997 he was held liable in a civil lawsuit for the deaths.

Mr. Galanter attacked that issue in his closing, noting that Mr. Riccio’s recorder picked up police officers at the crime scene seeming to exult in their chance to prosecute Mr. Simpson. He also noted that Mr. Riccio testified he had made more than $200,000 in fees from the news media in exchange for interviews and rights to his recordings.

“This case has never been about a search for the true facts,” Mr. Galanter said. “This case has taken on a life of its own because Mr. Simpson’s involved. You know that, I know that, every cooperator, every person with a gun, every person who signed a book deal, every person who got paid money, the police, the district attorney’s office, was only interested in one thing: Mr. Simpson.”

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