Cousins defends gangland links
December 17th 2008 05:18
NEW Richmond recruit Ben Cousins has defended his gangland associations as 'sincere friendships'.
Cousins was named in court by police as an associate of Angelo Venditti, who is charged with ordering the contract killing of Paul Kallipolitis during Melbourne's underground war in 2002.
Speaking at his first press conference as a Tiger on Wednesday, Cousins admitted he knew Venditti.
"Through the hard times I have found people love to link me with other people who have found themselves in hard times," he said.
"But what doesn't get reported is a lot of those relationships and associations that I have with those people have been borne out of sincere friendship and a common thread that we have found ourselves in hard times."
"I was hopefully looking forward to today being about putting the past in the past and moving on and hopefully it won't be long before things get spoken about me are more related to football and less about stuff like that."
Cousins was named in court by police as an associate of Angelo Venditti, who is charged with ordering the contract killing of Paul Kallipolitis during Melbourne's underground war in 2002.
Speaking at his first press conference as a Tiger on Wednesday, Cousins admitted he knew Venditti.
"Through the hard times I have found people love to link me with other people who have found themselves in hard times," he said.
"But what doesn't get reported is a lot of those relationships and associations that I have with those people have been borne out of sincere friendship and a common thread that we have found ourselves in hard times."
"I was hopefully looking forward to today being about putting the past in the past and moving on and hopefully it won't be long before things get spoken about me are more related to football and less about stuff like that."
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