Murder of Michael McGurk

In April 2013, 'Lucky' Gattellari was sentenced by Justice Megan Latham at the NSW Supreme Court to a maximum of 10 years. He was eligible for parole on 13 April 2018 and, after the NSW Parole Board refused parole, Gattellari lodged an appeal against the decision. Gattellari is facing further charges, together with Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara, for allegedly attempting to extort Medich.

After a jury failed to reach a verdict in a 2017 trial, Medich was again tried before a Supreme Court jury and, on 23 April 2018, was found guilty of ordering the murder of McGurk, and of intimidating McGurk's wife. Medich had earlier plead not guilty to both charges. On 21 June 2018 in the Supreme Court, Medich was sentenced to a custodial sentence of 39 years; with a minimum non-parole period of 30 years.

Kaminic was sentenced to a minimum 2½ years in jail and a maximum of 4½ and was eligible for parole in November 2017.

In April 2013 Estephan was sentenced by Justice Geoffrey Bellew to a maximum of 6 years and 5 months' jail, with a minimum non-parole period of 5 years. He was eligible for parole on 12 October 2015.

Prior to his death, McGurk was negotiating a property deal for Bob Ell, a BRW Rich 200 billionaire. Ell's company, Leda Holdings, had interest in Kings Cross landmark property, the Crest Hotel. Ell sought to redevelop the Crest and buy the property from Australand for $70 million. According to media reports, McGurk was negotiating on behalf of Ell and for business associates of John Ibrahim to run the downstairs bar area of the Crest in return for an investment of $10–$15 million. McGurk was working with Ell to collect rent from tenants and met disgraced former company director, Jim Byrnes. Despite initially being on opposing sides of negotiations, Byrne and McGurk would later form a friendship, and work together for Ell. Leda Holdings held a $450,000 mortgage over McGurk's city office on York Street, Sydney – which is owned by McGurk's wife. It was reported that Australand rejected the McGurk's proposal just days before his death.

McGurk had also been charged in connection with an assault on Rowan after Rowan refused to provide McGurk with a valuation on a Bathurst property. Other charges that were dropped related to the alleged assault on a former employee, Will Manning with a cricket bat and further counts of arson relating to the firebombing of a former business associate's Cremorne property. Media reports claim that McGurk was involved in the alleged firebombing of a Balmoral house, owned by Justin Brown (of CB Richard Ellis); although Brown never pressed charges against McGurk. Brown was also assaulted in his office – allegedly on McGurk's instructions.

In August 2013 Haissam Safetli was sentenced to 6½ years' jail for the murder of McGurk, and another six months for intimidating his widow.

Richard Vereker, an associate of McGurk and aged 68 at the time of McGurk's death, was mentioned in a 2008 ICAC inquiry involving Wollongong City Council. At this Inquiry, ICAC found that eleven individuals engaged in various forms of corrupt conduct between 2004 and 2007. Vereker, a former butcher, bookmaker, and Wollongong businessman, had reportedly facilitated a meeting between McGurk and Graham Richardson that later led to McGurk attempting to exhort Medich. Vereker, a disability pensioner, was reportedly NSW Labor's second largest individual donor, with a political donation of $75,000 in the 2007 state election campaign. On 1 July 2010, Vereker, with Mark Abernethy, published a biography of McGurk, called The Fast Life and Sudden Death of Michael McGurk.

Meanwhile, based on information in the recording plus media reports and information provided by an inmate in a correction centre, ICAC identified thirteen matters for investigation. A public enquiry was held over five days, and commenced on 1 February 2010. Medich, Haddad, and Richardson all gave evidence at the ICAC Inquiry. The Commissioner determined that there were no findings of corrupt conduct; and was unable to substantiate any of the thirteen allegations.

On 13 October 2010, thirteen months after the murder of McGurk, homicide detectives arrested the following:

On 27 October 2010 police also arrested McGurk's business associate Ronald Edward "Ron" Medich, and charged him with soliciting to murder McGurk. Police alleged that Medich was the mastermind of the murder plot. Police arrested Medich at his solicitor's office and it was reported that Gattellari agreed to give evidence against Medich in defence of his own conspiracy charges. It was also reported that Safetli was prepared to give evidence against Medich. Despite Medich offering to put up $1 million in surety and his younger brother Roy Medich offering $500,000 in cash, bail was refused. A few days later, Medich was charged with murder of McGurk. Much media attention was made of Medich's fall from grace, as he spent a little under two months in solitary confinement whilst in custody, before being released on conditional bail. In a 2013 committal hearing, Medich pleaded not guilty to the murder of McGurk, and pleaded not guilty to a charge of intimidation in relation to McGurk's wife. A trial date of August 2014 was set, before Justice Megan Latham.

The murder of Michael McGurk was an Australian contract killing. McGurk, a Scottish-born Australian businessman, was murdered by a single gunshot to his head on 3 September 2009 outside his Cremorne, Sydney family home. In October 2010 five men were arrested and several charges laid; and by April 2013 four of them had been convicted and jailed in connection with the murder of McGurk. The last accused, businessman Ronald Edward "Ron" Medich, was, in April 2018, found guilty by a jury in the Supreme Court of orchestrating the murder of McGurk, and of intimidating McGurk's wife. In June 2018 Medich was sentenced to a 39-years custodial sentence.

In various media reports, it was claimed that Medich and McGurk were in dispute, including matters that were brought before the Federal Court by Medich against McGurk and his wife, and various companies associated with McGurk. These matters were heard by the Court and dismissed on 8 April 2009, due to Medich failing to disclose material facts. Costs were awarded against Medich. In another matter that is yet to be resolved, Medich and McGurks' executors are in dispute.

The Sydney Morning Herald also revealed links with Craig Knowles, a former NSW Planning Minister, and with Lucas Neill, a captain of the Socceroos, in McGurk's alleged role as a financial middleman for the set-up of a proposed western Sydney A-League soccer team. The registered office of Sydney Wanderers Football Club, the legal entity of the new club, was the offices of Bentley Smythe in York Street, Sydney – McGurk's place of business. The proposal to set up the new soccer club collapsed on 2 September 2009, the day before McGurk's murder. It was later revealed that McGurk was acting on behalf of Paddy Dominguez, Neil's manager and Bob Ell, a potential sponsor of the soccer club.

In early 2009, McGurk had been charged with assault and two charges of firebombing houses, one of which was that of Adam Tilley, allegedly firebombing the Point Piper home in November 2008. Tilley purchased the Wolseley Road mansion from Medich for $12.5 million in 2004. Central to the dispute between Tilley, Medich, and McGurk was an agreement for Tilley and Medich to develop land adjoining the Wolseley Road property that could potentially yield Medich $20 million (net). As the global financial crisis resulted in a dip in property market values, Medich assigned his $10 million interest in the Point Piper property to McGurk. McGurk allegedly demanded Tilley repay the maximum $20 million. McGurk commenced action in the Supreme Court when his demands were refused. Two weeks prior to his murder, the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions dropped the charges, including the alleged firebombing of another property in Queen Street, Beaconsfield, owned by the valuer Stuart Rowan.

McGurk was killed by a single gunshot to his head some time between 6:30 pm and 6:45 pm on 3 September 2009 outside his family home in Cranbrook Avenue, Cremorne. McGurk lived in the house with his wife, Kimberley, and their four children and were reportedly "...a Catholic family, a lovely family." According to friends and McGurk's priest, he was a generous man and doting father. McGurk's nine-year-old son, Luc, was with him at the time of the shooting and is reported to have been a witness to the murder. Emergency services were called to the murder scene and rendered assistance to McGurk; however he could not be saved and died at the scene of the shooting.

Within days of McGurk's death, it was revealed that McGurk had a tape recording of a conversation with Medich, which McGurk was allegedly using to try to extort money from Medich. It was alleged that Medich was attempting to influence government officials by improper means. It was reported that Medich sought planning approval to rezone land that he owned at Badgerys Creek on the south-western fringes of Sydney. There was immense and, what some described as, sensational, media coverage about these tapes, their content, and possible ramifications. On 5 September 2009 The Sydney Morning Herald published on its front-page, "Exclusive: Secret tape blamed for killing". Directly below the banner: "It could bring down the Government."

The following day Graham Richardson, a former Hawke and Keating Labor federal government minister and now political lobbyist, told Channel Nine that he had heard the tape and the key part which apparently exposes the Labor figures is inaudible. Richardson stated that McGurk was allegedly trying to blackmail Medich for $8 million and that in about June 2009 Richardson had provided a formal statement to NSW Police. Commenting on Richardson's very public denial of the tapes containing any matter of substance, Jennifer Hewett, national affairs columnist with The Australian, wrote:

On 8 September 2009, NSW Police passed a copy of this tape to the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC). However, the NSW Opposition called for a Parliamentary Inquiry. On 9 September 2009, a motion was carried in the Legislative Council to establish an inquiry into Badgerys Creek land dealings and planning decisions. The inquiry's Terms of Reference included inquiring into and "report on land dealings and planning decisions relating to land or interests in land held solely or jointly by Ron Medich Properties Pty Ltd and Roy Medich Properties Pty Ltd in or around Badgerys Creek", with a particular focus on roles of the Minister for Planning, other Ministers, NSW Planning, other government agencies, members of parliament, political parties and lobbyists, and to make recommendations about planning integrity. Fourteen submissions were received, including submissions from Richardson, NSW Planning (via Sam Haddad), the Property Council of Australia, and Penrith City Council. Public hearings were held on:

An interim report was tabled to Parliament on 20 November 2009, and made eleven recommendations with a focus on stronger regulation of contact between planning officials, development proponents and lobbyists. The Committee also recommended tighter regulation of political donations. The second supplementary report was tabled on 25 February 2010 and only became necessary as a result of Richardson's unwillingness to respond in writing to questions submitted after his evidence at the Committee's first hearing.

It was reported that four days after the murder of McGurk, police seized a number of weapons from Gattellari's home. Media reports claim that Gattellari was appointed a director to a number of companies associated with Medich in July 2009. Court documents lodged by police, allege that some time after 1 May 2009, Gattellari solicited Safetli to murder McGurk and that for more than thirteen months after the killing "did receive, harbour, maintain, and assist" Safetli. Medich, who has reportedly known Gattellari from childhood, had lent millions to Gattellari, including $4.8 million between November 2009 and October 2010 and $16 million in total, through various joint ventures.

Following McGurk's death, an unnamed criminal, aged 73, prosecuted for fraud and in custody at the time of McGurk's death, alleges that he was kidnapped and tortured by associates of McGurk because he was trying to leave a gang that was undertaking systemic and organised superannuation fraud. Apparently police were aware of the alleged fraud scheme (operating between 2003 and 2005) and grossed in excess of $2 million for McGurk; but were unable to obtain a clear link to prove McGurk was involved, despite the man making the allegations was living in a property owned by McGurk.

Rushford travelled to Australia in 1993, where he began working with ECC Lighting, in inner Sydney. Whilst he was employed at ECC, Customs officers found out that Rushford had overstayed his temporary visa. Served with a deportation notice, Rushford left Australia, travelling to New Zealand, via Fiji, and returned with a new passport and new identity as Michael Loch McGurk, altering his birth date from 1958 to 1964.

McGurk, born Mick Rushford in 1958 in Glasgow, Scotland, was raised in the Gorbals notorious slum area by his grandmother and brothers; although some media reports claim that Rushford was raised in Edinburgh.