Property developer Ron Medich sentenced to 27 years for McGurk murder
The millionaire property developer Ronald Medich has been sentenced for a 27 year non-parole jail period for the 2009 shooting of Michael McGurk.
The maximum sentence was 39 years.
The non-parole period of 27 years will begin February 26 2021 but will he will be imprisoned on a shorter four year, six month sentence until that period for the intimidation of McGurk's widow.
He won't be allowed out until 2048.
Medich, who turned 70 in April, was found guilty of the murder a few weeks later. The judge took more than two hours to hand down his judgement this morning.
It was noted by Daily Telegraph chief court reporter Emma Partridge that his trial barrister Winston Terracini was not present.
McGurk was killed by a single gunshot outside his Cremorne home on Sydney's lower north shore.
The SMH crime reporter Kate McClymont has been tweeting the judgement, saying Medich looks 'impassive', as the judge discusses whether the 70 year old should be given a life sentence.
The judge said he was "breathtakingly callous" when he ordered the intimidation of Mrs McGurk a year after having ordered the murder of her husband.
Channel 7 reporter Robert Ovadia noted Justice Geoffrey Bellew praised the victim’s family for their dignity in the face of their personal “catastrophe”.
Michael McGurk’s widow, Kimberly and her four children embraced and cried after the judgement.
While not the shooter, Medich was tried for hiring his friend and associate ex-boxer Lucky Gattellari to carry out the hit on McGurk.
Medich was business partners with McGurk, but he complained he was "costly" and "ruining his life" before he ordered his execution, the second trial in the Sydney court was told.
At the time Medich owned a Point Piper harbourfront house sold for $37 million in 2014. His wife Odetta left for Europe.
In the hours before Michael McGurk was murdered, property developer Ron Medich had an emotional phone conversation with a police officer in which he expressed his distress that firebombing charges against his former business partner had been dropped.
By late October 2010 five men had been arrested and several charges laid. By April 2013 four of them had been jailed in connection with the murder of McGurk.
One was the Bosnian immigrant Senad Kaminic who acted as a debt collector and driver for Gattellari. Kaminic was jailed after pleading guilty to accessory after the fact to murder.
"Money was always in question," Kaminic said of the tension between Medich and McGurk.
Kaminic testified to hearing Gattellari, after a private conversation with Medich, refer to Medich's intention to "go all the way".
"What was your understanding of what Mr Gattellari had said to you about him wanting to 'go all the way'?" prosecutor Sharon Harris asked.
"To kill McGurk," Kaminic replied.
"That he's costly for him and that he's ruining his life."
The SMH had noted that one of McGurk's first jobs for Medich was being dispatched to Hawaii by Medich to threaten Paul Mathieson, the founder of Amazing Loans, with whom Medich had had a falling out over his investment in the pay-day lending company.
He was also given the job of recovering Medich’s loan to Adam and Sally-Anne Tilley, who had borrowed money from Medich to buy Medich’s earlier redundant Point Piper home.
McClymont poignantly wrote the cycle of Medich’s business failures meant that whoever became his new “best friend” was asked to recoup Medich’s investments from the previous soured deal, "usually by way of menace."
