A man convicted of murder has been sentenced to seven years in prison for orchestrating a complex scheme to disrupt the trial of two drug lords. William Todd, aged 61, devised the plan while incarcerated in an effort to invalidate a £45 million drug trafficking charge against the two individuals. However, Stefan Baldauf, 64, and Philip Lawson, 63, were ultimately sentenced to a combined 54 years after law enforcement dismantled the conspiracy.
Todd, along with accomplices Danny Thomas and Sheree Avard, 41, were sentenced at Southwark Crown Court after pleading guilty to conspiring to obstruct justice. Thomas obtained the names of jurors during the trial and later sent a message to the court falsely alleging that five jurors had been bribed to convict Baldauf and Lawson.
Steve Ahmet, the senior investigator at the NCA’s Anti-Corruption Unit, emphasized the lengths to which high-risk criminals will go to evade justice and highlighted the importance of combating corruption in society. Nicola Rutter from the Crown Prosecution Service condemned the actions of Thomas, Avard, and Todd, stating that tampering with juries undermines the integrity of the justice system.
Baldauf and Lawson were involved in a criminal group planning to smuggle over 70 stones of MDMA, valued at £45 million, to Australia. Unbeknownst to them, their encrypted communication network was breached by the National Crime Agency, leading to their arrest as part of a large-scale organized crime investigation.
The investigation revealed that Todd and Thomas attempted to disrupt the trial multiple times, with Avard joining the scheme later on. Thomas was apprehended at Heathrow Airport after arriving from Dubai, where incriminating evidence was found on his phone linking him to Todd. Todd’s secret mobile phone hidden in a DVD player in his prison cell was also discovered, leading to further convictions for him and five other men totaling 163 years in prison.