Rapist Tom Silvagni has been jailed for more than six years for a callous and egregious attack on a young woman in his own home.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old did not react on the video link from prison as Victorian County Court Judge Gregory Lyon handed down the sentence on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n
His parents, AFL great Stephen Silvagni and media personality Jo, also showed little emotion at the jail term and quickly left the courtroom as soon as the hearing finished.<\/p>\n
Silvagni had denied he digitally raped the woman – known under the pseudonym Samantha Taylor – at his Melbourne home in the early hours of January 14, 2024.<\/p>\n
Ms Taylor, who had a brief relationship with Silvagni’s friend Anthony LoGiudice, had been invited to join them all at the house by Silvagni’s girlfriend Alannah Laconis.<\/p>\n
The four of them chatted for some time before heading separately to bed and Ms Taylor had consensual sex with Mr LoGiudice.<\/p>\n
He then had to leave so he organised an Uber and left the property shortly before 2am.<\/p>\n
Silvagni then went to Ms Taylor’s room and lied, telling her Mr LoGiudice would be returning upstairs soon because his Uber had been cancelled.<\/p>\n
But Silvagni went into the dark bedroom a short time later and pretended to be Mr LoGiudice as he digitally raped the young woman.<\/p>\n
She managed to move away and ask directly if he was Silvagni but he still claimed to be Mr LoGiudice.<\/p>\n
Silvagni then grabbed both of Ms Taylor’s hands, pinned her down and digitally raped her a second time while she told him to stop.<\/p>\n
Ms Taylor managed to get a hand free and felt his hair, which was longer than Mr LoGiudice’s, and that’s when Silvagni stopped and ran from the room.<\/p>\n
He returned a few minutes later and acted as if nothing had happened, asking her if she was OK and requesting a hug before she left.<\/p>\n
In the days that followed, Silvagni fabricated an Uber receipt to make it look like Mr LoGiudice had left his home 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 a County Court jury rejected his story, finding him guilty of two counts of rape on December 5.<\/p>\n
In sentencing, Judge Lyon outlined Silvagni’s callous lies as he tried to undermine Ms Taylor’s beliefs and prevent her from reporting the crime to police.<\/p>\n
“Your conduct towards Samantha was egregious,” the judge said.<\/p>\n
He noted while Ms Taylor did not sustain physical injuries from the attack, she was left with psychological and emotional trauma.<\/p>\n
The judge commended her for showing integrity throughout the court process.<\/p>\n
“Ms Taylor’s demonstrated courage is hopefully a sign she is on the path to recovery,” Judge Lyon said.<\/p>\n
Ms Taylor, who was in court supported by family, wiped away tears at the judge’s comments while Jo Silvagni glared at her from across the room.<\/p>\n
Judge Lyon was critical of Silvagni’s actions towards Mr LoGiudice, saying he had tried to avoid taking any responsibility for his crimes.<\/p>\n
“Your conduct towards Anthony, who had been a lifelong friend, in your own self-interest was utterly appalling and shameful,” he said.<\/p>\n
The judge noted Silvagni had shown no remorse or insight into his offending, but accepted he was still a young man with no prior convictions.<\/p>\n
He acknowledged Silvagni had diagnosed depression and his time in custody would be more difficult as a result.<\/p>\n
Intense media scrutiny was also a form of additional punishment but the judge found the reporting had been objective and fair throughout the trial.<\/p>\n
Judge Lyon sentenced Silvagni to six years and two months behind bars but he will be eligible for parole after three years and three months.<\/p>\n
Silvagni’s parents quickly departed after the sentence and dodged questions from reporters outside court.<\/p>\n
They previously read out a statement to the media, saying their son was innocent and flagging an appeal against the verdicts.<\/p>\n
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)<\/p>\n
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028<\/p>\n
Lifeline 13 11 14<\/p>\n
beyondblue 1300 22 4636<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rapist Tom Silvagni has been jailed for more than six years for a callous and egregious attack on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3296,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-354109","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\/354109","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=354109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}