Richard Charles "Ric" Mochalski (21 March 1948 – 27 September 2002) was an Australian politician. He was the

Labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

member for

Bankstown Bankstown is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 19 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is part of the Canterbury-Bankstown region. Bankstown is the administrative centre ...

in the

New South Wales Legislative Assembly The New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the lower of the two houses of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The upper house is the New South Wales Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament House ...

from 1980 to 1986. Mochalski was the son of Czeslaw and Lola Mochalski, and was educated at De La Salle College. He received a

Bachelor of Law A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

from the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

before becoming a solicitor ion 26 July 1974. He also worked as a project manager with a public company. In November 1986, he married Deanne Crosio, with whom he had two children. Following the death in 1980 of

Nick Kearns Nicholas Joseph Kearns (16 January 1920 – 24 July 1980) was an Australian politician. He was a Labor Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly from 1962 to 1980, representing the electorate of Bankstown. Kearns was born in Gleb ...

, the

member for the state seat of

, Mochalski was selected as the Labor candidate for the by-election and was easily elected. He held the seat comfortably in 1981 and 1984. In 1984 the Balanced Property Trust collapsed with losses of $50 million. Mochalski was a founder of the trust, one of its directors and acted as solicitor for the trust. By 1986 Mochalski was under pressure to resign as a result of the collapse. Mochalski resigned on 1 December 1986, giving the reason as ill health. He applied to the NSW Parliamentary Superanuation Fund for a medical pension, but that was rejected following a report from the NSW Chief Medical Officer. The Legal Services Tribunal found that Mochalski was involved in making false and misleading statements about the Balanced Property Trust, that he had breached his duty to disclose his interest in relation to the Balanced Property Trust and the transactions and he was struck off the roll of solicitors. He was the subject of an investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption regarding unrelated allegations by John Henry Neal that he had been part of a criminal conspiracy to delay the supply of water to Neal's land and had solicited a bribe of $250,000. The ICAC found that Mochalski was not involved in any criminal conduct but that he had a

conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple wikt:interest#Noun, interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates t ...

and sought to use his position as a parliamentarian to obtain a personal benefit. Mochalski was initially facing multiple charges of fraud and conspiracy to defraud, however in April 1991 he was committed to stand trial on a single charge, a common law conspiracy to cheat and defraud. The outcome of this charge is unclear, with his parliamentary biography stating that he was convicted, as do Clune and Griffith, while

Antony Green Antony John Green (born 2 March 1960) is an Australian Psephology, psephologist, Data science, data scientist, journalist, and commentator. He was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's chief election analyst until his retirement from the r ...

states that he was acquitted. Mochalski died at

Terrigal Terrigal is a coastal town on the Central Coast of New South Wales, Australia, located east of Gosford on the Pacific Ocean. It is part of the local government area. At the 2021 census, the town had a population of . History Terrigal was fi ...

on .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mochalski, Ric 1948 births 2002 deaths Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly Australian Labor Party members of the Parliament of New South Wales 20th-century Australian politicians