{"id":828355,"date":"2026-07-28T04:37:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T04:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/828355\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T04:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T04:37:12","slug":"well-connected-melbourne-businessman-found-guilty-of-rape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/828355\/","title":{"rendered":"Well-connected Melbourne businessman found guilty of rape"},"content":{"rendered":"

A well-connected Melbourne businessman has been found guilty of rape and has been taken into custody.<\/p>\n

A County Court jury delivered the verdicts today, finding beyond reasonable doubt that the man raped and sexually assaulted a woman at his home on March 23, 2023.<\/p>\n

The man now faces the prospect of years in jail and will be sentenced at a later date.<\/p>\n

Because of an ongoing suppression order, the ABC is unable to name the man or disclose information about the industries he works in or is connected to.<\/p>\n

The County Court has also banned media outlets from running a pixelated photo of the man.<\/p>\n

Lawyers for media outlets, including the ABC, are set to argue for the gag order to be lifted later today, at a hearing before Judge Frank Gucciardo.<\/p>\n

The rape trial centred on events at the man’s house<\/a>, following a night where he and the complainant had been drinking alcohol and, according to the prosecution, taking cocaine.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors alleged that he sexually assaulted the woman in his bedroom, with the attack coming to a halt when she punched him in the face.<\/p>\n

He was alleged to have told her, “You’re so sexy” and “I can’t stop”.<\/p>\n

The man denied the allegations<\/a>, and also refuted claims that he made numerous unwanted sexual advances towards the woman in the months leading up to the night in question.<\/p>\n

With no eyewitnesses, lawyers for the prosecution and defence agreed the case hinged on the credibility of the complainant.<\/p>\n

The woman, who is several decades younger than the businessman, spent days in the witness box giving evidence during the trial.<\/p>\n

Defence barrister Dermot Dann KC called the woman’s version of events “fiction”, but prosecutor Matthew Fisher told the jury she was a credible witness who had not changed her story throughout the legal process.<\/p>\n

On Monday, jurors had asked the judge what would occur if they were unable to reach verdicts.<\/p>\n

After they were instructed to continue deliberations, the panel of 12 returned today to announce its unanimous decision on two charges of rape and one charge of sexual assault.<\/p>\n

In a heart-stopping moment, the jury foreperson misspoke while delivering the verdict, before confirming the man was guilty of the charges.<\/p>\n

Today’s verdict is likely to throw the man’s business into turmoil, and will have a knock-on effect for high-profile people he is connected to.<\/p>\n

A suppression order was first granted in the case in 2023, after the man had been charged by police.<\/p>\n

His lawyers told the Magistrates’ Court his mental health would be placed at risk if he was named in the media.<\/p>\n

Later, the County Court modified the suppression, ordering that it should lift upon verdict.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A well-connected Melbourne businessman has been found guilty of rape and has been taken into custody. A County…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,391277,44,304392,194090,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-828355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-melbourne-businessman","tag-news","tag-rape-trial","tag-suppression-orders","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828355","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=828355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}