Before a deadly stabbing, four co-accused have stated they just planned to loot a Sydney residence and never thought about killing anyone. They had their sights set on obtaining $50,000 in cash and cocaine.
Months after Lisa Anne Price had alerted a friend about the accessible stash, she had spied on the cash and drugs on a Tinder encounter with Luke Lembryk and another woman on August 24, 2019.
“The intense desire for money drove her, just like it drove others,” stated Kate Radcliffe, the crown prosecutor, in Monday’s opening statements.
Price’s attorney, Tom Quilter, testified before a NSW Supreme Court jury that his client committed a “gross error of judgment” in providing the information to Joseph Nehme, who thereafter allegedly organized the heist.
“There’s no denying Lisa Price made a mistake. Without a doubt, Lisa Price committed a crime “Quilter stated.
Nehme organized a break-in at Lembryk’s property on December 9, 2019, with the help of his associates Bilal Rahim and Viliami Taufahema.
Crown prosecutors said that Nehme had fatally stabbed Lembryk with a knife strapped to his back during an altercation that broke out inside.
Lembryk’s murder and assault with the purpose to rob in company have been filed against Price, Rahim, Taufahema, and a fourth co-accused, Sherene Rizk.
They will go through a joint trial after entering a not guilty plea to these allegations.
The prosecution claims that because they were all involved in the same joint criminal activity, they were all aware that the heist could result in serious physical injury.
“Each of them contemplated as a possible incident in the execution of carrying out their agreement to rob or steal from the deceased that a violent assault might occur,” said Kate Ratcliffe, the crown prosecutor.
Although they weren’t there when the break-in occurred, the two ladies are believed to have participated in the attack’s planning at Rizk’s Rockdale residence.
In response to two further allegations of breaking and entering with the purpose to take Lembryk’s goods and abuse his mother Robyn Bradley, Price and Rahim have entered not guilty pleas.
Price entered a guilty plea to an alternate charge of breaking and entering with the purpose to steal, while Taufahema entered a guilty plea to these two offenses.
Tony Evers, Bradley’s attorney, informed the jury that Taufahema shoved him over as the three of them were leaving the house. Bradley passed away a short while after due to a fatal illness.
Mark Hobart SC, Rahim’s defense attorney, stated that his client was at the “drug ripoff” to offer muscle, but he insisted that there was no actual plan for what would happen after they arrived.
“Never was there any contemplation that there’d be wounding, never was there any contemplation that there’d be a murder,” he stated.
Rizk claimed via her attorney Nicole Carroll that she never consented to hurt Lembryk and that she was never a part of any robbery scheme.
Although she acknowledged attaching a knife to Nehme’s body, she refuted that it was the weapon used in the stabbing and stated that she did it because she wanted it out of the house.
