Thirteen years before he captured the country's attention with the balcony murder trial, Simon Gittany was busted with a wad of cash and drugs in his pocket.
The then 28-year-old was a passenger in a black Porsche pulled over by police in Double Bay, in Sydney's east, in March 2000.
An officer noticed a bulge in Gittany's pocket, court documents show.
The officer asked what it was, and Gittany produced a wad of mostly $50 bills.
The constable said he could still see something in a back pocket and asked Gittany to turn his pockets out.
With the notes still in his hands, Gittany pointed to the constable's offsider and asked: "What's up with your mate over there?"
As the officer turned his head, Gittany bolted.
Police chased him down and noticed he had thrown in a garden bed a plastic case containing 55 tablets of methylamphetamine.
They all had "Y2K" stamped on them.
Police also found cash sticking out of his pants, under his shirt, totalling $5207.60, records show.
He pleaded guilty to supplying a prohibited drug and was sentenced to weekend and home detention.
Unemployed at the time of his arrest, Gittany told a court he was setting up a cleaning business.
But it wasn't until more than a decade later that he would enjoy the financial success he yearned for.
Though his trial never revealed how he afforded his luxury apartment overlooking Sydney's Hyde Park, it is believed Gittany set up a number of businesses before being convicted of murder.
Gittany, 40, pleaded not guilty to murdering his fiancee Lisa Cecilia Harnum by throwing her off their balcony on July 30, 2011.
He was convicted in the Sydney Supreme Court on Wednesday of killing her and will be sentenced next year.
It has been revealed that Gittany severed part of a policeman's ear while the officer was trying to arrest him in his family home at Merrylands in Sydney's west in 1994.
Gittany's mother Lamia Gittany was also involved in the melee.
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