The Victorian director of public prosecutions has dropped murder charges relating to the shooting death of gangland lawyer and police informer Joseph “Pino” Acquaro.
The explosive development brings to an end a court case that threatened to force Victoria police to reveal the identity of human sources in order to prosecute Vincenzo Crupi, who they alleged had murdered Acquaro.
Acquaro, himself a police informant, was gunned down near his East Brunswick cafe in March 2016.
Crupi pleaded not guilty and maintained his innocence. He was charged with the murder in 2018 but has been on bail since March 2021.
Acquaro was found to have provided information to the force about his former clients, including people alleged to be members of the Calabrian mafia, the ’Ndrangheta.
It was not part of the prosecution case that Acquaro had informed on Crupi, or that Crupi was a member of the ’Ndrangheta.
Documents provided to Crupi’s lawyers as part of disclosure – a process designed to ensure an accused has access to all relevant evidence held by police in order to properly defend their case – showed that the force relied on an informer, known as Informer Z, as part of its case.
Crupi won an appeal in the Victorian court of appeal that would have forced Victoria police to reveal the informer’s identity.
The court noted that it was likely that, at his trial, Crupi would submit that there were other people with a motive to kill Acquaro.
The chief commissioner of Victoria police and the director of public prosecutions appealed against the court of appeal decision to the high court.
The high court found police disclosed a substantial number of documents to Crupi about Acquaro and the threats to his life, but sought to resist disclosure of additional documents, comprising about 600 pages. They resisted this on the ground of public interest immunity because disclosure might reveal the identity of Informer Z or enable their identity to be ascertained.
An application to resist disclosure of the public interest immunity material was heard and dismissed by the primary judge on 16 November 2022.
The office of public prosecutions said in a statement on Friday: “The case against Vincenzo Crupi for the murder of Joseph Acquaro has been reviewed by the director’s committee and a special decision made to discontinue the prosecution.
“Every prosecution must have reasonable prospects of conviction and be in the public interest. This decision followed very careful consideration of the case with respect to these criteria and, as with all matters involving a death, was not arrived at lightly.
“Following discussions with Mr Acquaro’s family members, the notice of discontinuance was filed this morning.”
