A Sydney man has been sentenced for extorting money from a mechanic and threatening him with a 45-centimetre sex toy almost three years ago, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. Back in 2013 when the magistrate in court during Aaron Sabbah’s first bail application asked what he was allegedly armed with during the altercation, the prosecutor replied accordingly: "A black dildo, your honour".
Now, how the hell did we get here? 42-year-old Aaron Sabbah, then 39, had his $167,000 Mercedes-Benz taken away from him in January that year after he failed to make a payment on his loan. He decided to take matters into his own hands a week later by driving his repossessed vehicle away from the car yard it was being kept in, to get the brakes fixed at the workshop of a local mechanic (who cannot be named for legal reasons).
Not realising the car was technically stolen, the mechanic was caught driving it around the next day by police, who repossessed the vehicle and let him go without charging him. Being the rational man that he is, Sabbah called the mechanic from overseas, claiming he was responsible for losing the car and demanding the $10,000 he thought he had to pay out on the outstanding loan.
Actually, it was $112,000, and Sabbah perhaps eventually realised this, upping his demands to $30,000 and making physical threats against the mechanic. While these threats would continue through February and March, with the mechanic paying him a total of $4500, things came to a head (pun intended) when Sabbah eventually showed up to the workshop in April, armed.
"Sabbah ... entered the workshop in an intimidating manner with a large black dildo in his right hand, which he was smacking into his left hand continually in an aggressive and threatening manner," the original court documents officially state. "The offender said (to the mechanic), 'come into the office'," noted Judge John North during the sentencing in court on Tuesday.
Seemingly an appropriate response to being menaced by a threatening figure with a gigantic sex toy, the mechanic ran away to contact police while Sabbah continued his hot streak, stealing $400 from the man’s desk. Sabbah had a criminal history that stretched all the way back to 1991 and had spent time in jail in the past, the court heard.
The judge considered Sabbah’s guilty pleas as well as the fact his financially dependent partner would be giving birth around August, backdating the sentence and ordering him eligible for recognisance release after seven months in prison.
Judge North added that it was time that Sabbah “gave up offending and settled down”. While it means his dildo-wielding reign of terror and in turn, our own perverse entertainment both have to come to an untimely end, we'd probably have to agree with the judge on this one.
