- Dragons star Junior Amone found guilty of attacking Tradie
- He was accused of attacking the man with a hammer along with his father
- Both were found guilty of a series of charges, but want their convictions overturned.
Former NRL playmaker Junior Amone was the victim of a ‘stitch’, his lawyer has told the court, as former St George Illawarra Dragon seeks to overturn his conviction for a hammer attack that saw his contract torn up.
Junior Amone and his father Talatau Amone appeared in Sydney’s Downing Center District Court on Tuesday in a bid to overturn their convictions relating to a heated incident outside their Warrawong family home in Wollongong in November 2022.
Junior Amone and his father were found guilty of a series of charges in October last year, including assault occasioning bodily harm.
In October, Magistrate Gabriel Fleming found the couple guilty of all charges after the court was told that tradesmen Jai King and Dean West were working on a house opposite the Amone home when they became involved in an argument with a group of men by a Nissan Navara parked in a strip of nature.
Former Dragons playmaker Junior Amone has been released from the NRL after being found guilty of a string of offences.
Junior Amone and his father Talatau Amone appeared in the Downing Center District Court in Sydney on Tuesday.
The court was told Talatau Amone hit the rear-view mirror with his elbow and reached into the vehicle to turn off the indicator.
Junior Amone then jumped onto the roof of the vehicle, the court was told at the time, while his father abused and threatened the shopkeepers.
Fleming found Junior Amone and then climbed onto the roof of the property, where the men were working, while wielding a hammer.
King jumped to a neighboring roof to escape it, falling and hitting an air conditioning unit along the way.
He suffered serious injuries, including a broken hand.
Junior Amone’s $500,000 per season contract with the Dragons was torn up after he was found guilty on all charges.
Mrs Fleming discovered that the evidence linked Junior Amone to the scene and was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that he was the man who chased Mr King from the roof.
Talatau Amone was found guilty of damage to property, intimidation and entering a building or land with intent to commit an indictable offence, and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Junior Amone was found guilty of damage to property, intimidation and assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
Talatau Amone was sentenced to two and a half years in prison with a non-parole period of 12 months.
However, he was released on bail pending his appeal.
Junior Amone was sentenced to a two-year intensive correctional order.
Following his conviction, the NRL deregistered Junior Amone’s contract with the Dragons, resulting in the breach of his $500,000-a-year contract.
Both Amone and his father are now fighting to clear their names and claim the convictions were a “stitch”
Junior Amone’s fingerprints were found on the windshield of the damaged car after the incident.
Both he and his father are now fighting to clear their names and were present in court Tuesday as their attorney John Korn argued for their convictions to be overturned.
Korn raised questions about Junior Amone’s identification after King and West Googled Talatau Amone’s name and saw a news story about Junior Amone.
He maintained that they came to the hearing seeking to ‘identify a person’ and described it as a ‘stitch’.
The court was told that Junior Amone’s fingerprints were found on the windshield of the damaged car.
Despite the physical evidence, Korn disputed that Junior Amone was the person who jumped on the car and subsequently chased King.
“The placement of fingerprints… would go against the situation he was in in the car,” Mr Korn said.
Korn told the court there was never any evidence that the person who jumped on the hood also touched the windshield.
The hearing before Judge William Fitzsimmons continues on Tuesday.