Troy Mercanti's partner 'cleaned out funds' for clubhouse
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From: PerthNow
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November 23, 2010
THE partner of bikie Troy Mercanti "cleaned out" trust fund accounts set up for the children of one of his close friends and a murdered Coffin Cheater to help her purchase a Balga clubhouse for rival gang The Finks, a court heard.
Tammy
Cherie Kingdon, 33, has pleaded not
guilty to four counts of stealing and
one of money laundering.
The Commonwealth Bank accounts were set
up for the daughters of murdered bikie
Marc Raoul Lucien Chabriere and Richard
Vickers, a close friend of Mr Mercanti.
Chabriere was shot dead in his car in
Welshpool in 1998 while Mr Vickers died
in May 2000.
In the opening address of Ms Kingdon’s
trial in the Perth District Court today,
prosecutor Carmel Barbagallo said the
accused, as trustee, siphoned about
$54,000 from the accounts to help
purchase The Finks clubhouse in August
2008.
Ms Barbagallo explained that Mercanti
was a member of the Coffin Cheaters
until 2008 when he defected to The
Finks.
She said that Ms Kingdon, the mother of
Mercanti’s two children, transferred the
money into her own account on August 14,
2008.
“Twelve days later that money was used
to help purchase The Finks clubhouse,”
she said.
“She has cleaned out the trust accounts
for these girls and closed the accounts.
But her counsel Stephen Shirrefs said
she was perfectly entitled to invest the
money she deemed appropriate in pursuit
of capital grown for the trust funds.
“She did what she was entitled to do by
law,” he said.
“This case is quite simple. In November
2001, Tammy Kingdon opens two cash
management accounts into which the money
is deposited and it sat there.
“To try and improve the return she then
put it into term deposits.”
Mr Shirrefs said she signed a contract
to purchase property in July 2008 and
moved the trust money for the purchase
to proceed.
He said Ms Kingdon remained as a trustee
of clubhouse and that the investment was
an acquisition for the children.
“You get better capital growth in real
estate than you do with it (money) just
sitting in the bank,” he said.
“In August 2008, The Finks motorcycle
gang became leasees of the property.
“So what?
“She remained the trustee.
“She invested in real
estate, an investment she was entitled
to do under the Trustee Act 1962.”
In giving evidence, Mr Vickers daughter
Claire said she remembered Mercanti and
Coffin Cheater Eddie Withnall discussing
setting-up a trust account for her
following her father’s death.
Mercanti
is currently serving a two-year jail
term for assaulting a man in
Northbridge.
The trial continues.