Pubdate: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) Contact: http://www.smh.com.au/ Author: Malcolm Brown NO DRUGS ON EVE OF KILLING - PODESTA Former police officer Rodney Podesta denied yesterday that he had turned up in uniform and affected by drugs at a woman's flat the night before the incident on Bondi Beach in 1997 when he and fellow police officer Tony Dilorenzo shot a man dead. Mr Podesta, answering questions at the Police Integrity Commission (PIC) on the evidence of SA2, a woman who had been out with him, denied he had gone out with her to nightclubs or that he had supplied her with cocaine and used it himself. He might have been at the Soho Bar at Kings Cross with Mr Dilorenzo at 1.30 am on May 10, 1997, but had "definitely not" been in a cubicle with two other men. Mr Peter Johnson, SC, counsel assisting the PIC, asked: "The person outside the cubicle called for a person to emerge and the door opened and you produced a police badge. Did that occur?" Mr Podesta: "No, it did not." Mr Podesta said he had met SA2 in 1997, "probably" before the incident on June 28, 1997, when he and Mr Dilorenzo had shot dead Frenchman Roni Levi. The PIC, under commissioner Judge Urquhart, is inquiring into allegations that Mr Podesta and Mr Dilorenzo were affected by drugs or alcohol at the time of the shooting. Mr Podesta told the PIC he had met SA2 at the Liberty Lunch restaurant at Bondi, had dined with her the night afterwards, had gone home with her and spent the night with her, but had not continued the relationship. He had in fact sought to avoid her and had thought she was "stalking" him. If he had rung her, it would have been to tell her to leave him alone. If he had seen her again, it would have been a long time before the shooting. Mr Johnson produced telephone records which showed that Mr Podesta had been in contact with SA2 from February 7 till May 29, 1997. He had rung 13 times in February, and six times in March. Some of the calls had been in the early hours of the morning, such as 4.56 am, 4.50 am, 12.10 am and 5.21 am. Mr Podesta said a lot of the calls would have been replies to her own calls, when he had left a voice mail message for her. Mr Johnson: "On the occasion you were at Liberty Lunch with her, you gave her cocaine?" Mr Podesta: "Rubbish." You used it with her as well?: No. You were out at the Byblos and Sugareef and you gave her cocaine when you went to those clubs with her and you would use it as well on those occasions?: Certainly not. Mr Podesta, who resigned from the police service in March last year, did say that when he went out to nightclubs in that period, he had been seeking female company. He denied he had talked about his work as a police officer to impress women. He denied he had discussed his police work with SA2, or that he had said he said he liked Saturday night shifts because it gave him the opportunity to do drug busts on private parties and seize the cocaine. Mr Johnson: "I suggest you supplied cocaine to persons at the Liberty Lunch in the first few weeks you went out with her?" Mr Podesta: "No." The inquiry has adjourned to a date to be fixed, when it will inquire into how the police service itself dealt with allegations against Mr Podesta and Mr Dilorenzo. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea