A 61-year-old convicted murderer has been sentenced to seven years for orchestrating a complex scheme aimed at sabotaging the trial of two drug kingpins. William Todd, behind bars, devised the plan to help the accused drug traffickers avoid a £45 million trafficking charge by falsely alleging jury tampering. However, Stefan Baldauf, 64, and Philip Lawson, 63, were ultimately convicted and received a combined 54-year prison term after law enforcement dismantled the conspiracy.
Todd, along with co-conspirators Danny Thomas and Sheree Avard, 41, were sentenced at Southwark Crown Court for their involvement in conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Thomas acquired the identities of jurors during the trial’s commencement in open court. Subsequently, a message was sent to the court falsely implicating five jurors of being bribed to convict Baldauf and Lawson.
Senior Investigating Officer Steve Ahmet from the NCA’s Anti-Corruption Unit emphasized the gravity of high-harm criminals’ determination to evade justice and the significant threat they pose to societal institutions. Nicola Rutter of the Crown Prosecution Service highlighted the severe implications of jury tampering on the justice system, citing the attempts by Thomas, Avard, and Todd to disrupt the trial and undermine the convictions.
Baldauf and Lawson were part of an organized crime syndicate that planned to smuggle over 70 stone of MDMA, valued at £45 million, to Australia. Their operation was exposed when the encrypted phone network they used was compromised by the National Crime Agency, as part of a major organized crime investigation in the UK.
The defendants’ efforts to interfere with the trial proceedings, including false claims of jury tampering, were uncovered through diligent investigative work. The elaborate scheme orchestrated by Todd, a two-time life sentence convict, and his accomplices ultimately led to their incarceration and the successful prosecution of the drug traffickers involved in the large-scale smuggling operation.
