The friend of a murdered Greek-Australian businessman gunned down during Melbourne’s gangland war has been jailed for stealing more than a million dollars to pay off the dead man’s debts.
Michael John Henderson, 59, pleaded guilty to 80 crimes of dishonesty and was sentenced to 7 1/2 years’ jail in the Supreme Court in Hobart yesterday after stealing $1.3 million.
Justice Alan Blow said Henderson initially committed the fraud to help clear the debts of his friend Dimitrios Belias, who was shot in the back of the head in St Kilda on September 9, 1999.
“Mr Belias owed very large amounts of money to some Melbourne underworld figures, and was unable to pay, and was first threatened and ultimately killed as a result,” Justice Blow said.
In 2002, a coroner found that Mr Belias had been trying to use fake diamonds to clear his underworld debts before he was lured to a car park by someone he knew and shot.His killer remains unknown.
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