Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with their weekly dose of scallywag scuttlebutt.
Melbourne’s mugshot master
There have been many great mugshots over the years.
Tony Mokbel snug in a rug in Greece, Robert Downey Junior looking like he’d seen better days and that time clean-cut Hugh Grant let himself down with a sex worker in a car in Los Angeles.
Then there’s the scowling Donald Trump station pic and American Jeremy Meeks, whose good looks won him fame and fortune as that country’s so-called “Hot Felon”.
This week, we can welcome a newcomer to the mugshot hall of fame and it’s great to say he’s a local boy from good old Melbourne.
William Courtney was featured on the Casey Eyewatch page to remind the public that he’s being sought over an outstanding warrant.
Mr Courtney eschewed the usual stare down the lens to give the coppers something a little different from the usual badass posturing or the shocked “what am I doing here?” look of the novices.
In the process, Mr Courtney lit up the Eyewatch comments section.
The neighbouring Greater Dandenong Eyewatch page also carried a distinctive-looking fellow.
James Peart is out and about somewhere the cops can’t find him, though his facial tattoos should help with that task.
Tony, sometimes you lose
So “Fat Tony” Mokbel is unhappy that Tabcorp is not paying out his $5700 winning bet on the grounds he is one of the 100 scoundrels black-listed by the suddenly lilywhite corporate citizen.
It couldn’t really come as a surprise. Fact is, the Mokbel clan has been on the nose with racing authorities at least since the day undercover police photographed Tony playing Santa Claus and handing out baggies of cocaine at Flemington spring carnival meetings back before it all went pear shaped.
Apart from the tactical error of handing illicit drugs to an undercover policewoman at the races, there was also the Pillar Of Hercules scandal that left racing with egg-on-face and knee deep in horse manure.
Pillar Of Hercules was a very promising colt raced by a syndicate that included various cleanskin members (wives, perhaps) of the extended Mokbel family, notably Tony’s brother Horty Mokbel.
The scandal that blew up when Tony Mokbel jumped bail, vanished and was secretly spirited to a Greek hideaway, an outrage that became too embarrassing even for traditionally flexible racing bodies.
The scandal led to Pillar Of Hercules being compulsorily auctioned one at Caulfield one day in 2007, the day before the Mackinnon stakes at Flemington.
A Sydney syndicator paid a surprisingly fat $1.8m for him — and guess who paid up handsomely for 75 per cent of the horse… serial conman “Dollar Bill” Vlahos, of course.
Despite the sky-high price and the colt’s apparent promise, it proved a poisoned chalice for Vlahos and his increasingly bewildered band of “investors”.
Of course, worse was to come for Dollar Bill and those trusting souls who handed him large amounts of cash on the intriguing grounds that he’d promised to give them back even more because he, like, had a crystal ball or ouija board.
As for Pillar Of Hercules, he raced nearly 30 times and won just two Group races. Following retirement in 2010, he stood as a stallion at stud in Victoria but was a failure in the breeding caper.
Given an offer he couldn’t refuse, poor old Hercules underwent the ultimate “gear change” — he was gelded then returned to the track as a veteran in 2013.
It wasn’t a great success. He galloped as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Cop a sharp operator
Taskforce Hawk was set up some time ago to deal with construction sector criminality but one victim can be thankful one of its members veered out of that lane last week.
The detective was on a stationary train at Thomastown on Thursday when a 38-year-old man was suddenly stabbed by another bloke.
The officer intervened and grabbed the knifeman, who was later charged with inflicting injuries which left the victim in a hospital bed.
Anyway, duty called and the cop continued his journey to the CBD.
He must have had some serious commitments that day because those in the know say he rocked up to the office covered in the victim’s blood and looking like he’d gone three rounds with Freddy Krueger.
Colleagues were forced to rustle up some new clothes for the investigator so he could get back to busting building industry baddies in a presentable state.
Pie fan in the poo
There are many in our community with a low opinion of Collingwood supporters.
One Magpie fan has done nothing to ease that prejudice with an unseemly display in Phuket, Thailand.
He was spotted in his Woods jumper last week making his way through the Bangla Rd night-life strip in what could be politely described as a dishevelled state.
While being filmed, he raised the guernsey to show off his genitalia and gave the thumbs-up.
There were also indications he had “bronzed-up” but not in the sun-protection way that might be expected in the tropics.
Those unfortunate enough to see the fellow said he appeared to have had faeces smeared on his legs.
“Bronzing-up” is a practice particularly popular in jail when inmates want to make themselves hard to handle.
Its exponents over the years have included a gang boss Carl Williams, a former AFL great and a cause célèbre of the anti-Covid set.
Fish sets sail for Honkers
Word reaches Deadline that tenacious investigator Brent Fisher has taken a senior appointment with the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Mr Fisher carved out a long career in Victoria where he worked on major organised crime, drug, corruption and murder inquiries.
The high-profile cases of Prue Bird and Les Samba were among the homicides he investigated.
Mr Fisher later became integrity chief at Harness Racing Victoria before making the move to Racing Victoria where he ran investigations and intelligence.
The HKJC appointment means anyone up to no good at Sha Tin and Happy Valley would be well-advised to mind their manners.