A NSW policeman has fronted a Wollongong court charged with public corruption offences amid allegations he took a bribe in exchange for giving alleged members of a multi-million dollar Vietnamese drug syndicate sensitive information from the police force’s criminal database.
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Senior Constable Dennis Hoyn, who is attached to Campbelltown highway patrol but lives in Wollongong, is facing 15 charges stemming from a 10-month police investigation.
Two alleged syndicate members, Wollongong couple Goran and Lily Despotovski, were arrested and charged in December after police claimed they had evidence of the pair directly supplying at least 140kgs of cannabis, with an estimated street value of $2.8million over the 10-month period.
Lily has since been released on bail however Goran remains behind bars.
Documents tendered to the court on Tuesday suggest Hoyn and Goran were known to each other, with Hoyn accused of releasing “confidential information” to Goran during a meeting between the pair at a Corrimal pub on the evening of December 4, around the same time Hoyn allegedly received a cash bribe.
Details of the alleged bribe, including who offered it and how much was involved, are yet to be publicly released.
Hoyn was arrested less than 24 hours later.
Meanwhile, police will claim Hoyn’s illegal accessing of the force’s internal Computerised Operational Policing System (COPS) began in early 2018, when he carried out a search for registration information on a vehicle on February 2.
It is alleged he carried out four more unauthorised searches that month, including looking up details associated with a 2014 white Mercedes AMG sedan.
Further searches occurred in May, July and December involving several vehicles.
Police will allege each one was carried out without authority and information gained from the illegal access was released by Hoyn to “various persons not entitled to [that] restricted data”.
Hoyn also stands accused of looking up information relating to a man, who the Mercury has chosen not to publicly identify.
Hoyn did not enter a plea during his first court appearance on Tuesday, however faces up to seven years behind bars if convicted of the bribery offence alone. The data breach charges each carry two-year jail sentences, while the misconduct in public office charges have no maximum set penalty.
Hoyn’s bail was continued, with the case set to return to court in March.
A police spokesperson was unable to immediately confirm Hoyn’s current employment status on Tuesday evening.
