Mokbel associate’s drug appeal rejected

A man jailed over his links to Tony Mokbel’s drug trafficking empire has had an application to appeal against his conviction refused.

Wayne Finn was found guilty by a Victorian Supreme Court jury last year of two counts of possessing the precursor chemicals formaldehyde and ammonia and one count of possessing P2P, a drug of dependence.

Finn was jailed for three years, with a minimum of one year and nine months, but was acquitted on multiple charges of trafficking and possession.

His brother Matthew Finn, who faced similar charges, was cleared on all counts but was fined after pleading guilty before the joint trial to possessing an unregistered firearm.

The substances were discovered at a factory in Springvale, in Melbourne’s southeast, from which the brothers operated separate businesses.

Wayne Finn sought leave to appeal against his conviction on the ground that the verdicts were unreasonable because they were inconsistent with the jury’s acquittal of his other charges, and of his brother’s.

In the Victorian Court of Appeal on Friday, Finn’s application was dismissed by justices Marcia Neave, Philip Mandie and David Harper.

“The applicant has failed to substantiate that the jury’s verdicts were unreasonable or inconsistent with the jury’s acquittals on the various other charges against the applicant and the co-accused,” they said in their judgment.

The justices said it was open to the jury to conclude that Matthew did not have possession of either precursor drug but that Wayne did, without having a lawful excuse for doing so.

They also accepted the crown submission about the strength of the evidence implicating Wayne in the possession of the P2P and the relative weakness of evidence implicating his brother.

In sentencing Finn in June, Supreme Court justice Geoffrey Nettle said he was satisfied that Finn, motivated by greed, had possessed drug-making chemicals to facilitate the activities of Tony Mokbel for financial gain.

“I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that you, Wayne Finn, were associated with Tony Mokbel in connection with his drug trafficking activities,” the judge said.

“You did so knowingly, in the sense that you well understood the seriousness of that kind of offending.”

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