Fresh Child Abuse Charges Against Milton Orkopoulos

Convicted paedophile and former Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, Milton Orkopoulos was charged with 15 new child sex abuse offences on Monday June 15 while already in custody at Long Bay Jail for breaching bail conditions.

The former NSW minister was dismissed by Premier Morris Iemma after only one year and 90 days in the job in November 2006, after being charged with 30 child sex offences including involvement in child prostitution, sexual assault and supplying illegal drugs.

The 15 new charges relate to historical child sex offences, including child prostitution dating back to the 1990s and involve two juvenile boys, the youngest aged 14 years.

Police say the abuse was sustained over many years at Lake Macquarie and the Mid North Coast and the victims were allegedly known to Orkopoulos, though specifics about those details are yet to be revealed in court.

The 62 year old has been charged with five counts of aggravated sexual assault and three counts of causing a child to participate in child prostitution.

Orkopoulos was released on parole in December 2019 after serving 11 years of a 13 year, 8 month sentence for child sex and drug offences.

He spent over 11 years in jail for grooming and assaulting three boys between 1995 and 2006, supplying them with heroin and cannabis, with one of the victims being assaulted and introduced to heroin after he confided to the politician about sexual abuse he had suffered previously.

 After his release in December 2019, Orkopolous was promptly re-arrested in January 2020 and charged with failing to comply with his reporting obligations under the Child Protection (Offender Registration) Act and in February his parole was revoked when Corrective Services NSW officers told police he used the mobile phone of a fellow resident at the halfway house he was living in at the time.

Bail was refused on those charges and he had been in Long Bay jail ever since, until this week when the fresh charges were laid.

Orkopoulos appeared in Newcastle Local Court on Tuesday via audio visual link from Sydney’s Long Bay prison and until his arrest on Monday had been held in the prison’s less secure remand section.

After Lake Macquarie detectives charged him with the fresh child abuse offences, Orkopolous was relocated to the prison’s maximum security area.

Orkopoulos said nothing during the brief hearing and did not apply for bail, which was formally refused.