The state's corruption watchdog has finished compiling detailed evidence against 11 individuals named during Wollongong City Council corruption hearings.And it has asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to consider laying criminal charges.The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) confirmed yesterday that it had forwarded briefs of evidence to the DPP on each of the people it recommended for prosecution last October.
Sorry tale that shows no signs of a speedy conclusion An update has also been posted on ICAC's website."Briefs of evidence in relation to all 11 persons have been submitted to the DPP, and the Commission is awaiting advice from it on whether to proceed with prosecutions," the update reads.The group includes eight of the 10 individuals who were found to have engaged in corrupt conduct - former council staff members Beth Morgan and Joe Scimone, developers Glen Tabak and Frank Vellar, and Labor councillors Val Zanotto, Kiril Jonovski, Zeki Esen and Frank Gigliotti.It also includes three men who were not found to have engaged in corrupt conduct, but were identified by ICAC as committing possible criminal offences - developer Lou Tasich and alleged conmen Ray Younan and Gerald Carroll. The other two senior Wollongong City Council staff who were found by ICAC to have engaged in corrupt conduct, former general manager Rod Oxley and former development assessment and compliance manager John Gilbert, were never recommended for any criminal charges.The completion of the briefs is the first significant step forward since ICAC Commissioner Jerrold Cripps QC handed down the third part of his report into Wollongong City Council on October 8 last year.Commissioner Cripps had recommended a possible 139 criminal charges could be pursued against the group of 11.An ICAC spokeswoman was unable to discuss the evidence against the 11 individuals or elaborate on whether the evidence covered the entire range of possible criminal charges flagged in Commissioner Cripps' findings.Some briefs of evidence had already been supplied to the DPP, but the completion of all the evidence means the next step now rests with the NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery, QC.A spokeswoman for the Office of the DPP said that privacy laws meant she could not discuss any details of the cases and could not confirm that the briefs of evidence had been received.
