Prison

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Sebastian 'Seb' Monsour has been charged with fraud following a long-running investigation.
It was into an alleged $5 million investment fraud. 
He is due to appear in the Brisbane Magistrate's Court tomorrow charged with fraud, according to the ABC.
Police raided his business in Spring Hill after it was alleged he accepted three significant payments from an overseas investor for projects.
The 44-year-old is the chief executive of real estate development company Majella Group. The company had been the sponsored of rugby union team QLD Reds.
His bio suggests he has more than two decades of experience designing, constructing, operating and managing infrastructure in the utility and government sectors.
It is alleged he had no authority, appropriate licence or credentials to manage investments.
Detective senior constable Douglas Henderson told the ABC the money allegedly went into business accounts instead of the promised investments.
Henderson said the money was supposed to go to three investments.
"One was like a future start-up-type investments fund and the other was a diversified property fund and the other was a balanced property fund," he said.
"So we're still confirming the exact details of where the money's gone, but not to the investments it's supposed to have.
"None of the money went to any of those investments," he alleged. 
Monsour has been remanded in custody and is expected to apply for bail in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday.
 
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Police charge Seb Monsour with alleged $5 million property investment fraud

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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. 
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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.
<div>Kaminic recalled overhearing Medich refer to Mr McGurk as "piece of shit" and a "motherf***er".</div>
"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."
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Property developer Ron Medich sentenced to 27 years for McGurk murder

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The transformation of one of Australia’s most iconic former prisons into a new age urban village will commence this month, with construction work to begin on the 167-year-old Pentridge Prison.
Pentridge Coburg developer Shayher Group will start work on the construction of the 6,000 square metre site’s large retail hub first, which will deliver cinemas and a new supermarket for Coburg when competed in late 2019.
The retail precinct will feature a shopping centre as well as a 15-screen Palace Cinemas.
The shopping centre is the centrepiece of Shayher Group’s vision to transform the former Pentridge Prison into a vibrant mixed-use urban village comprising cafes, restaurants, a hotel, shopping facilities as well as apartments and public open space.
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Spanning approximately 6.7 hectares, Pentridge Coburg will create more than 8000 jobs, including more than 1200 permanent jobs across retail, hospitality and hotel industries.
Shayher Group spokesperson Anthony Goh said construction commencement aimed to give future tenants and the local community confidence that the project is on track.
“This is an important milestone for the revitalisation of Pentridge Prison and its transformation into a vibrant community asset, driving economic and employment growth locally,” he said.
“The construction process will be sensitive to the existing heritage of the prison and undertaken in a manner that will ensure the heritage elements live on for many decades to come.
“For our future retail tenants, Palace Cinemas, Zero95 Wood Fire Pizza Bar and Adina, the construction commencement marks the beginning of our journey in making Pentridge Coburg a place for the local community to experience and enjoy.”
Pentridge Coburg’s retail precinct has generated strong interest from Melbourne’s hospitality and retail industry, which sees the potential a project of this size has to reinvigorate the local Coburg economy and turn the area into the next inner-city hotspot.
In addition to Palace’s support for the project, Adina has signed on to operate a 120-room hotel on site.
Pentridge is on the Victorian Heritage Register, which is overseen by Heritage Victoria. 
Shayher Group has invested more than $2 million through various restoration works, including restoring the iconic guard towers.
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Construction to commence on former Pentridge Prison transformation

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The Pentridge Prison site in Victoria is set to feature a hotel with developer Shayher Group announcing TFE Hotels will operate an Adina Apartment Hotel on the site.
The 120-apartment hotel in Coburg, will be designed by Cox Architecture, with guests offered the chance to stay in a historic converted prison cell.
A further nine levels of accommodation will be built adjacent to the prison, including six levels of residential apartments.
<img src="/images/2016/08/02/P18.jpg" alt="" width="1012" height="655">
Shayher Group spokesperson Anthony Goh said some cells would be retained in their former condition.
TFE Hotels chief executive officer Rachel Argaman said the site speaks to a rich history and we believe locals and visitors from overseas will be intrigued to learn about Australia’s penal past, she said.
“Hotels provide a great way to preserve the history of heritage-listed buildings, allowing unique and memorable experiences for guests who learn and experience aspects of that rich past,” she said.
The hotel is expected to open in 2020, pending planning and heritage permits and construction approvals and will include an all-day dining restaurant, day spa, 400 square metres of conference and meeting facilities, an indoor pool and gym and parking.
Shayher will invest more than $1 million in restoration works this year. 
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Hotel to be built on Pentridge Prison site

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Former real estate agent Anthony Vito Brancatella has been sentenced to 40 months in jail by Consumer Affairs Victoria court for swindling nearly $2 million of clients’ money.
He must must serve a minimum of 20 months in prison, it was ruled.
The court issued proceedings agains Brancatella, 43, from Melbourne’s Huntingdale, in March 2015 for 62 counts of wrongful conversion and false accounts under the Estate Agents Act 1980.
In February this year, he pleaded guilty in the County Court of Victoria, admitting to using clients’ money to help run his business and repay debts.
In March last year, Brancatella’s licence was suspended and in June 2015, the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court granted interim injunctions preventing Brancatella to work as a real estate agent.
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