A Bowna farmer who sent a series of threatening texts his victim believed showed he was drunk at the time had been worried about a perceived threat to his highly specialised work, a court heard has heard.
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Simon Henry Tooth runs 800 head of cattle on his property and harvests fetal cattle serum.
This, defence lawyer Mark Cronin told Albury Local Court on Tuesday, could be sourced only in Australia, New Zealand and Canada to make white blood cells - used in cancer treatment - because of the absence of foot and mouth disease.
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Tooth, 56, wrongly believed the victim was involved in a reported scandal where an overseas company was mixing serum from other countries with Australian serum.
"He absolutely concedes his behaviour was disgraceful and that there's no excuse for it," Mr Cronin said.
The victim had a company involved in collecting and process fetal bovine serum from Australian cattle and selling this to pharmaceutical companies.
He met Tooth about 10 to 15 years ago when Tooth worked for another company, but had not seen him since.
He received a text message on his personal mobile phone on December 2 that read: "I hear you are on the one of five of the hit list to die. Who do you reckon are the other four (you) German grub. I hear a lot of money is on your head ... "
The man soon tracked down Tooth and told him he would report him to the police.
The victim received further messages on January 23 he believed were sent by Tooth when drunk and which referenced "Germans, mafia" and the line of work in which the victim was once involved.
"The victim has no explanation as to why the accused is targeting him, other than he is German ... ," police said.
Also, he believed Tooth reckoned he was somehow connected with a company that imported serum from America to sell in Australia and was "implicated in their illegal activities in some way".
A text message he sent two days later included a video in which the victim identified Tooth, who was "boxing" in his underwear, with beer cans on a nearby table.
"Can you box ... ? Let's find out c---," Tooth could be heard to say on the video.
Police arrested him on February 26, days after he sent another message.
Tooth previously pleaded guilty to intimidation and was sentenced on Tuesday to a 12-month community corrections order and 140 hours of unpaid work.
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