NEWMARKET

Marco Muzzo’s scheduled wedding date will come and go while he remains behind bars.

There will be no nuptials now. Not while the progeny of a billionaire family awaits his bail hearing on charges he drove drunk last Sunday and allegedly blew threw a stop sign, causing a horrific collision that killed three little children and their grandfather.

He and fiancee Taryn Hampton were supposed to wed Oct. 17. Instead, the bride-to-be was in court alongside Muzzo’s mother, Dawn, for his brief court appearance Friday.

Thinner than he appears in a widely used photo of him behind the wheel of a Ferrari, the handcuffed 29-year-old was remanded in custody.

Throughout the five-minute hearing, Muzzo barely lifted his head.

I hope it’s from shame.

Police allege his black SUV T-boned a minivan at the intersection of Kirby Rd. and Kipling Ave. north of Kleinburg. Killed were Daniel Neville-Lake, 9, siblings Harry, 5, and Milly, 2, and grandfather Gary Neville, 65 — their names now forever linked with his.

Anger is destined to follow him as well.

Outside the courthouse, a woman held up a sign: “I am a mother of 3. I wake up to hold my children. Justice for Neville-Lake family.”

Muzzo was about to embark on one of life’s most important journeys, getting married and starting a home of his own, perhaps with children of his own one day. His future now lies in shards; what does the young man do?

Kathy Mitchell, president of MADD Canada’s York Region chapter, knows what she wishes he would do: spare the grieving family more pain by having to relive their tragedy through the slow judicial process.

“I hope that these lawyers that his money is buying encourage him to do the right thing,” Mitchell said.

Money. The word is whispered, the accusation hovers just below the surface.

How will the Muzzos’ net worth affect his case?

He is named for his late paternal grandfather, who founded the family-run development empire responsible for building throughout the GTA.

The grandson is listed as a director of Marel Contractors, one of the clan’s companies that has offices in Calgary and Ottawa as well.

So far the family wealth has secured him a new lawyer — high-profile Brian Greenspan, who knows how to handle the media and say what needs to be said.

That wealth has employed five private bodyguards — tough-looking guys in ill-fitting suits with Secret Service-like earpieces — to escort his mom and fiancee in and out of the courthouse through the throng of waiting media.

And how to explain the assistance the Muzzo entourage received from an unprecedented phalanx of uniformed York Regional Police cops and court officers who shoved reporters and cameramen brusquely out of their way? Why such special treatment?

“It’s money,” shrugged one court observer as she overheard Greenspan declare that he would “not tolerate” anyone approaching the Muzzo family and then insist that reporters leave the public hallway to wait for his statement outside.

There’s little doubt that money buys media management.

“Marco is, first of all, devastated by the horrific loss of life and has expressed to me on numerous occasions his condolences and sympathy to the family,” Greenspan said. “This is obviously a tragic situation.”

He refused to say how his client will plead.

“That’s premature. It’s not an appropriate question at this stage. We have not received any disclosure.”

The cynical might wonder if the defence lawyer requested postponement of the bail hearing to Oct. 19, date of the federal election, so his client’s case won’t get much media coverage that day. Greenspan insisted it was completely “inadvertent.”

But that’s what happens when the accused is a man of means. The fear — as unfair and baseless as it may be — is that the system can be manipulated for the rich.

The message boards are alight with the skeptical who don’t trust what lies ahead.

“Money seems to trump everything these days,” one wrote.

“Money talks,” predicted another.

Personally, I have far more faith in the justice system.

But then people have often called me naive.

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