Kogarah attack: Police failed to heed Anthony Peter Sampieri’s sex call warnings - 2012 victim

Now facing allegations of a second rape - this time involving a child at a Kogarah dance school - Sampieri’s story has given rise to a wave of public anger over alleged police failings.

A officer has been stood down, the Premier has apologised and a departmental investigation is under way, after it was revealed police failed to act on complaints of obscene phone calls this year that likely would have resulted in Sampieri’s parole being revoked before he allegedly struck at Kogarah. 

For former Mercury staffer Kristina, one of at least eight women targeted by the 2012 phone calls, police failed to heed the warnings then, and now. 

“I can’t help but wonder why police didn’t take [the calls] more seriously, because I know they would take it more seriously if it was their wife, or their daughter, or their mother,” she said.  

“Maybe it’s this toxic masculinity thing where they assume it’s some dirty perve, no big deal. 

“Does someone have to die before its taken seriously?”

Sampieri collected the phone numbers of women he saw in the pages of the Mercury – often working women who used the newspaper to advertise their businesses or events. He kept clippings of their photographs and a list of their details with notes for himself – “very young” and “older”. 

Kristina was one of four Mercury sales representatives Sampieri targeted. After several calls, she tried to keep him on the line so she could record him. He introduced himself as “Ron” and was on speaker phone as he described his genitalia and shared sexually explicit fantasies. 

“From memory it started out rude, but I do believe that it turned violent – sexually violent,” said Kristina, who asked that her surname be withheld.

“We were really scared. He knew where we worked and what we looked like so he could have easily come and followed us home.” 

Kristina and at least another seven women  reported Sampieri’s calls to police. She went to Wollongong station on October 17, 2012 and says an officer told her police had collected 71 pages of phone records detailing Sampieri’s calls to local women - real estate agents and radio station employees among them. 

She asked to see a photo of him, telling the officer she was worried he would “set a trap” by calling her out of the office under the guise of business. 

But she says she ultimately reported the matter only against the advice of the officer, who told her he didn’t think Sampieri was a threat and “that they were going to wait a week or two” to arrest him, in order to compile reports from women who had made complaints at other police stations.

“They said it would take a lot of resources to track down the phone records,” she said. 

“We were absolutely aghast and I said that to the police officer when I was there. I said, ‘what if his behaviour escalates? Somebody could get hurt’.

“He said, ‘no, he’s got his jollies off, he’s just a pervert caller’.”

Sampieri raped a 60-year-old woman five days later after calling her to his Elliotts Road, Fairy Meadow unit, claiming he had furniture she may be interested in buying for her business. 

He served almost five years behind bars for the assault and related offences. 

He was out on parole when he walked into a Kogarah dance studio last Thursday and allegedly raped a stranger’s seven-year-old child. 

Police have since revealed they had identified Sampieri as the source of several sexually obscene calls made in the weeks leading to the alleged assault at Kogarah.

A woman attended St George Police Station as recently as October 26 to report calls. Sampieri was interviewed, but then released.  

An internal police investigation in now examining why he was not charged or reported to corrective services. 

NSW Police Commissioner Michael Fuller said on Thursday police should have reported the calls to local parole officers, who may have locked up the 54-year-old for breaching the terms of his parole. 

"We are currently investigating the response to those victims’ concerns but at this stage certainly, at best, the organisation potentially has failed to notify the parole board of a potential parole breach and certainly, at worst, an officer has neglected their duty to a victim of NSW."

The departmental investigation centres around a single police officer, but could come to involve others. 

Comm Fuller said the officer involved was “stressed and concerned” and had been invited to be interviewed as part of the investigation. 

“We still have an obligation for that officer's welfare and we won't walk away from him. But if there needs to be accountability the community would expect there is accountability for this.” 

From the floor of Parliament on Thursday, Premier Gladys Berejiklian apologised to the seven-year-old girl and said it was "absolutely not acceptable" for police standards to "slip".

“On this occasion, madam Speaker, getting it wrong may have resulted in the most terrible of circumstances and we are deeply, deeply sorry to everybody affected," she said. 

Illawarra Mercury