Convicted rapist Tom Silvagni will face court for the first time since a suppression over his identity was lifted.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old son of AFL great Stephen Silvagni and television personality Jo Silvagni was found guilty of two counts of rape on December 5 following a two-week trial in the Victorian County Court.<\/p>\n
He is due to face a pre-sentence hearing on Friday morning.<\/p>\n
There had been a suppression over his identity since he was first charged with rape in June 2024, with his lawyers arguing publication could lead to the deterioration of his mental health.<\/p>\n
But Judge Andrew Palmer lifted the order on Thursday, ruling it was no longer necessary given the trial had been run and Silvagni would be under close watch in custody.<\/p>\n
There had also been extensive discussion online identifying Silvagni as the convicted rapist, the judge said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt some point he will have to reconcile himself to the reality that he has committed these offences and there is media interest,\u201d Judge Palmer said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Silvagni had repeatedly denied he digitally raped his friend\u2019s girlfriend at his Melbourne home in the early hours of January 14, 2024.<\/p>\n
The jury was told the woman had consensual sex with her boyfriend at the house but then he organised an Uber and left the property shortly before 2am.<\/p>\n
Silvagni then lied, telling the woman her boyfriend would be returning upstairs because his Uber had been cancelled.<\/p>\n
But it was Silvagni who went into the dark bedroom a short time later and pretended to be the woman\u2019s boyfriend before digitally raping her twice.<\/p>\n
In the days after, he doctored an Uber receipt to make it look like the victim\u2019s boyfriend had left the house after 2.30am.<\/p>\n
Silvagni admitted forging the receipt but said he did so because he panicked after being falsely accused of rape.<\/p>\n
But the jury rejected his story, finding him guilty of two counts of rape.<\/p>\n
He is due to face a pre-sentence hearing on Friday when his lawyers will make submissions on sentence.<\/p>\n
The maximum jail term for rape is 25 years.<\/p>\n
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028<\/p>\n
-with AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Convicted rapist Tom Silvagni will face court for the first time since a suppression over his identity was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343336,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-343335","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}