Alleged Westpac fraudster linked to botched contract killing

afr.com:

The man at the centre of an alleged $15 million fraud scheme targeting Westpac was once linked to a conspiracy to help kill his cousin’s ex-wife.

The bank is pursuing Kathie and Andrew Musumeci in the Supreme Court in NSW alleging they falsified revenue, profit and invoices to defraud the bank over five years through their stall Fresh Xpress.

Westpac claims that a fruit stand called Fresh Xpress owned by Kathie Musumeci produced forged invoices to secure over $15 million between 2014 and 2020. 

Nearly 20 years earlier, a coronial inquest heard evidence that Mr Musumeci was involved in the death of 57-year-old grandmother Pauline Gillard, who was shot through the bedroom window of her Balmain flat while playing a handheld video game in 1997. Police believed it was a case of mistaken identity, with the unknown killer hired instead to shoot her son’s partner, Maria Gioia, who had lived for a time in the same building.

Ms Gioia was the ex-wife of Neil Gioia, the cousin of Mr Musumeci, who was unhappy about their child’s custody arrangements. The 2002 inquest heard that Mr Gioia engaged Mr Musumeci, described at the time as “a wealthy stall owner at Flemington markets”, to help kill his ex-wife.

While police never laid charges against Mr Musumeci and the coroner made an open finding on Ms Gillard’s death, details of the inquest were detailed in a case Mr Musumeci launched against the NSW Attorney General. He argued that the inquest had improperly withheld evidence from his lawyers.

“There is material before the coroner to suggest that Mr Gioia enlisted the plaintiff’s [Mr Musumeci] aid in having Ms Gioia killed and that the plaintiff approached another man, Joseph Agostino, for that purpose,” a 2002 NSW Supreme Court judgment