In a separate incident, he also demanded $50,000 from a Seymour man to keep quiet about a child abuse photo the man had.
Joseph Mazzeo, 55, of Seymour, pleaded guilty in Shepparton County Court to charges of blackmail, burglary, theft of a firearm, theft, possessing a firearm while a prohibited person, possessing an imitation firearm while a prohibited person and possessing methamphetamines.
Prosecutor David O’Doherty told the court that the victim in the blackmail charge had asked Mazzeo if he “wanted to see some pictures of naked women” when the pair had been drinking together one day.
The photo that was shown to Mazzeo was of a naked underage girl.
Mazzeo and another man then hatched a plan to blackmail the victim over his possession of the photo.
The court heard Mazzeo and the other man went to the victim’s house on January 11, 2022, where they discussed the photo of the girl.
The other man said the photos were paedophilia, and they were going to go to the police, before Mazzeo told the victim that he was “a sergeant at arms of the Hells Angels, and we hate paedophiles”.
Mazzeo then told the man there was “a way around this”, and if he gave them $50,000 they wouldn’t go to the police, Mr O’Doherty said.
When the man said he didn’t have $50,000, they demanded he give them $30,000 by the next day, or $50,000 by the end of the week.
At 7pm that night, Mazzeo then demanded the victim give him $1000 in cash, which he did.
After his arrest, Mazzeo told police his co-accused “did all the talking”.
Mr O’Doherty told the court the victim in this matter has subsequently been dealt with by the court for child abuse material and had received an adjourned undertaking.
In the burglary incident, the court heard Mazzeo, another man and a woman stole what they thought was a handgun, a homemade pen gun and a box of .22 ammunition from the home of a man Mazzeo knew.
Mazzeo then got another woman he knew to arrange the sale of the handgun to some men.
The gun was sold for 28g of methamphetamine, worth about $5000 — which was split between Mazzeo and the co-accused man — and $200 cash.
The court heard at the time of the sale, all those involved believed it was a real handgun, but it was later found to be a gel blaster.
The prosecutor said the purchasers of the gun were upset it was not real and burnt down Mazzeo’s house soon after.
Mazzeo’s defence barrister, Michael Kats, told the court the changes against Mazzeo in the burglary matter could only be laid because of Mazzeo’s admissions to police about it.
He also said his client had given evidence in the court case of two of the men who bought the gun.
Mr Kats said his client’s offending “screamed an addiction to drugs” but that Mazzeo had now not used drugs for a year.
He also told of Mazzeo’s upbringing where he was physically abused, before leaving home at 15.
While Mazzeo was already on a community corrections order at the time of the burglary, Mr Kats asked for another community corrections order for his client.
He argued that it was Mazzeo’s first blackmail charge, and it had “resulted in getting this child abuse material out of the community”.
However, Judge Geoffrey Chettle said removing the material from the community wasn’t Mazzeo’s intentions, rather that it was an attempt to extort money from a “pretty vulnerable bloke”.
Before deciding on the sentence, Judge Chettle said he wanted to receive a report from Community Corrections, including whether it was going to breach him on the order he was already on.
Mazzeo will return to court in November.
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