smh.com.au
Jailed Perth bikie Troy Mercanti has won a technical victory in an appeal against his sentence, but it has not changed his release date.
Mercanti, a former member of the Coffin Cheaters bikie gang, became a nominee for the rival Finks gang in 2008.
He was sentenced to 12 months in prison on December 21, 2010 after pleading guilty to 10 counts of refusing to answer questions from the Australian Crime Commission (ACC).
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The ACC was investigating unexplained wealth in the Mercanti family in October 2009.He was ordered to serve four months of his 12-month sentence before he could be released.
However, at the time of that federal sentence being handed down, Mercanti was already serving a sentence for a state offence of causing grievous bodily harm, for which he was ordered on December 9, 2008 to serve two years and four months.
He became eligible for parole for the state sentence on January 31, 2010, but the application was rejected by the Prisoners Review Board and he was ordered to serve the entire term of imprisonment.
In the WA Supreme Court on Monday, the Court of Appeal set April 3, 2011 as the start date for the federal sentence.
Justice Stephen Hall said there had been an error in the original sentencing for the federal offences, which ordered the term be served cumulatively on the state sentence and failed to set a starting date.
He said federal sentencing was "notoriously difficult", especially when combined with state sentences.
In accepting Mercanti's appeal, Justice Hall said Mercanti had served his state sentence, which expired on April 3, 2011, and this meant his federal sentence began from that date.
Mercanti will be released from prison in early August on a two-year good behaviour bond of $4000.
