Dragons young gun Talatau 'Junior' Amone and his father have been found guilty of a brutal rooftop hammer attack against a tradie carried out across from their Warrawong household in November last year.
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A decision was handed down in the case of Junior, 21, and Talatau 'Dal' Amone, 47, at Wollongong Local Court on Wednesday following a two-day hearing earlier this year.
The father-son duo each pleaded not guilty to a raft of charges, including common counts of intimidation and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in company.
However Magistrate Gabriel Fleming found the pair guilty of all counts, with Junior responding to reporters with a shrug of his shoulders when asked how he felt about the result.
"We respect any decision of any court, it doesn't necessarily mean we agree with it," the Amones' defence lawyer Elias Tabchouri said.
"This matter is not over at all and we'll keep moving forward."
Junior and Dal will remain on bail ahead of their sentence date on December 6.
When initially charged, Junior was unavailable for selection for three months due to the NRL's no-fault stand down policy. However he returned to play in March when it was decided the matter would remain in the local court.
Junior's playing future is now under a dark cloud after the Dragons since confirmed he has been stood down from "all club activities until further notice".
"The club will make no further comment at this time as court proceedings continue," the statement read.
The magistrate accepted the evidence of tradies Jai King and Dean West as clear, consistent, and truthful.
Mr King said he was cleaning a roof across the road from the Amones' Warrawong household on November 15, 2022 when Dal started taking pictures of his Nissan Navara parked on a nature strip.
Dal then approached the ute, elbowed the rearview mirror, and reached inside the windows and snapped off the indicator.
A group of people then jumped on the ute, including Junior - who was armed with a hammer - causing damage to the windscreen.
Mr King said he was chased up the roof by a "tall guy" of "Islander appearance" that he later identified as Junior. He had nowhere to go as Junior swung the hammer at him, so he jumped onto a neighbouring roof however stepped backwards and fell from the two-storey home.
"I hit the air conditioning unit, it spun me around," Mr King said.
The magistrate accepted Mr King - who wore a wrist brace in court - had suffered serious injuries, including two broken hands, ribs and damage to his right hip as a result.
High-profile defence barrister John Korn argued Junior was not at the scene and it was a case of mistaken identity, with only vague descriptions of Junior provided to police.
Magistrate Fleming disagreed and said all of the descriptions given by the witnesses applied to Junior.
She added that CCTV from Service NSW and Sydney airport from the day of the incident showed him wearing the same clothing and shoes, and that his fingerprints were also lifted from Mr King's ute.
Mr Tabchouri argued Junior has no criminal record, and that Dal has not been in trouble with the law for many years. He added Dal had already spent close to three months on remand for the offences.
Police prosecutor Sergeant Anna Comer said the threshold of whether the pair should be imprisoned was "well and truly crossed".
"There is nothing other than a custodial sentence that would be appropriate," Sgt Comer said.
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Grace Crivellaro
Court reporter for the Illawarra Mercury.
Court reporter for the Illawarra Mercury.
