After a 10-week trial in the NSW Supreme Court the jury determined that Medich’s right-hand man Fortunato “Lucky” Gattellari was telling the truth when he claimed that Medich was “the big boss” who had ordered and paid for the murder of 45-year-old McGurk. McGurk, a Scottish-born wheeler and dealer, was once as indispensable to Medich as was his successor Gattellari. Medich turned 70 on April 11, the day the jury of 11 men (the sole woman juror was discharged during the trial) retired to consider his fate. This was his second trial. In 2017, a jury had been unable to reach a verdict. Lucky Gattellari, pictured leaving court in 2017. Credit:Daniel Munoz Both juries heard that Medich was enraged and embarrassed over a string of law suits in which he and McGurk were embroiled. Medich had been coming off second best in the courtroom stoushes that involved accusations of fraud. Each claimed the other owed him millions of dollars.

The pair were feuding over soured property deals, a loan company and mortgages linked to a house Medich once owned in Point Piper. Gattellari, 68, a former professional lightweight boxer and one-time Qantas steward, told the jury that he had initially hoped Medich’s desire for the ultimate revenge would blow over. But Medich continued to badger him about whether he had found a prospective hitman. Michael McGurk. Gattellari had his own reasons for wanting to keep Medich happy. His decadent lifestyle, which kicked off each morning with a cognac and cigar and often concluded with an afternoon visit to a massage parlour, was funded by Medich’s astonishing largesse. Not only did Medich fund their daily boozy lunches, brothel visits and overseas jaunts, Medich also poured $16 million into Gattellari’s failing electrical companies. Gattellari subcontracted the hit to a pair of bumbling amateurs.

On the evening of September 3, 2009, Haissam Safetli, then 45, and Christopher “The Kid” Estephan, 19, waited for McGurk to arrive at his Cremorne home. Estephan was dispatched to McGurk’s local bottle shop to buy some Jim Beam bourbon to settle their nerves. When he couldn’t produce ID, Safetli had to go to the shop. Loading At 6.25pm, McGurk and his nine-year-old son arrived home with a takeway chicken and chips for dinner. As McGurk alighted from his Mercedes he was shot in the head. His terrified son ran up the side path of the family’s home screaming, “Mummy, mummy, dad’s been hurt. There was a pop and there’s blood.” Kimberley McGurk rushed out to find her husband had been fatally shot behind his right ear.

At 8.03pm, Gattellari’s driver Senad Kaminic received a text from Safetli’s brother Bassam saying: “Job’s done.” Police have never proved who fired the fatal shot. Safetli, who offered up “The Kid” as the shooter, received a reduced sentence of a minimum of seven years for his role in the murder. He was released in November 2017. Estephan, who spent five years in jail, is the nephew of Bill Jalalaty, who was jailed for six years for his role in a major drug conspiracy with Mark Standen, the former assistant director of investigations for the NSW Crime Commission. After shooting McGurk, Safetli and Estephan almost pranged their getaway car at the first roundabout and were photographed going across the Harbour Bridge without paying the toll. Safetli later burnt the clothes he’d been wearing, forgetting that some of the murder money was still in his pocket. Bassam Safetli last week pleaded guilty to being an accessory to McGurk's murder.

He was arraigned in the NSW District Court on two charges: concealing the conspiracy to murder and concealing the murder itself, in that he didn't warn police of the plot or its aftermath. Bassam Safetli's sentencing hearing is set for June 1. Ron Medich outside the Supreme Court during his murder trial. Born in Innisfail, Queensland, in April 1948, Medich and his younger brother Roy, were the sons of a Croatian immigrant. After working as a canecutter, their father Peter became wealthy developing land in Sydney’s south-west. Ron and Roy Medich expanded the family business, making their fortunes developing industrial and residential sites in the Liverpool area. In 2007 the brothers fell out and, after selling their interest in Leichhardt’s Norton Street Plaza for $112 million, Roy and Ron went their own ways. The portrait painted of Ron Medich after the split is not a pretty one.

Without his brother, Ron fell prey to a series of opportunists. He invested in an Aboriginal funeral business (which was shut down by the corporate regulator), a failed property development with an Aboriginal land council (later the subject of an ICAC inquiry in which Medich was found to be corrupt) and a pay-day lending company. On top of that, there were the millions of dollars he had invested in McGurk’s suspect property deals, the $16 million he’d put into Gattellari’s companies as well as a host of unsecured and undocumented personal loans to associates and hangers-on. 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. Gattellari’s predecessor was McGurk who was 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 redundant Point Piper home. With his much younger glamorous wife, Odetta, Medich had upgraded to a better house in the same street. However, when the Tilleys fell behind with the payments, Medich handed the problem to McGurk to fix. When legal action against the Tilleys failed, McGurk went to plan B. In November 2008, their home was firebombed. When McGurk was charged over this in January 2009, Medich posted his $100,000 bail. But within weeks Medich had withdrawn the bail surety as the two were at war. This left the position of consigliere to Medich free for Gattellari to fill. Gattellari was arrested and charged with McGurk’s murder in October 2010. When he asked Medich to assist with his legal fees, he was rebuffed. Furious at being thrown to the wolves, Gattellari became the Crown’s star witness and, as a result of his co-operation, Medich was charged with McGurk’s murder a fortnight after Gattellari’s arrest.

As the years passed and Medich’s trial was delayed again and again, Gattellari became increasingly angry with authorities and with Medich. He was charged with trying to extort $15 million from Medich to change his evidence, using the now convicted murderers Roger Rogerson and Glen McNamara as go-betweens. Despite this, Gattellari’s evidence that he organised the murder on behalf of Medich was accepted by the jury. Ms Harris, the Crown prosecutor, told the jury that Medich expected that, after her husband’s murder, Kimberley McGurk would repay Medich the millions of dollars he claimed he was owed. When this did not happen, Medich wanted her threatened. Mrs McGurk said that she was terrified when, on August 8, 2010, a heavy-set man of Middle Eastern appearance, wearing a wig and a hoodie, came to her back door to warn her to "do the right thing and to pay her husband's debts".