Sydney property developer Jean Nassif busted with cocaine in police sting at Star Casino
High profile Sydney developer Jean Nassif exclaimed “oh shit” when he was busted by police sniffer dogs at The Star Casino last September. Out celebrating wife Nissy’s birthday, the construction boss told officers he planned to take the drug that night.
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High profile Sydney developer Jean Nassif said “Oh shit” as a crowd of police and sniffer dogs met him at the entrance to The Star casino — then he fessed up.
“Yes I have a bag … cocaine,” he told police.
The construction boss was out celebrating wife Nissy Nassif’s 32nd birthday on September 7 last year.
Nassif, 51, and another man walked up the escalators from Pirrama Rd, into the Pyrmont casino about 11.40pm where a “large congregation” of police and drug dogs were on a planned sweep.
“The accused said: ‘Oh shit’ and the accused immediately turned around and started to walk back down the same set of escalators he walked up,” a statement of agreed court facts said.
Officers followed Nassif, stopped him outside the venue and told him he was being recorded on their body-worn camera.
The document said: “Police asked the accused if he had any prohibited drugs in his possession. He said: ‘Yes I have a bag’. Police said: ‘(A) Bag of what?’ The accused said: “Cocaine’.”
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Police found a small bag of white powder in his front left trouser pocket and took Nassif to a holding room inside the casino. The bag was weighed at 0.35 grams.
Mr Nassif told police: “It was for myself. It’s my wife’s birthday and I was gonna take it tonight.”
Nassif pleaded guilty in the Downing Centre Local Court on October 14 to possessing a prohibited drug and was given an 18-month conditional release order and no conviction was recorded on account of his good character.
The standard conditions for such an order were applied to him, that he not commit any offence and he attend court if ordered to do so.
When contacted yesterday, Nassif’s lawyer Rebekah Giles said “there is more to this than meets the eye, which I am not prepared to go into”.
“The fact is there was no conviction recorded against my client on account of his good character and standing in the community,” she said in a statement.
“My client has co-operated with the authorities and the Court and he regrets the unfortunate circumstances.”
Nassif has been a regular in the high roller rooms at The Star for several years.
It is understood he has been banned from the venue, although the casino company said it could not confirm or deny any “exclusions” when contacted.
“We do not comment on individual cases,” a spokesman for the casino said.
The Nassifs are parents to three young children and live in a mansion in Chiswick overlooking the harbour in Sydney’s inner west.
Throughout 2019, headlines on the couple bounced between the couple’s flamboyant lifestyle and civil court cases involving Mr Nassif or his development firm, Toplace.
In February he splashed $75,000 on a birthday party in The Star’s Marquee nightclub and social media videos from the night showed him surrounded by scantily-clad women and a cabaret singer covering the Shirley Bassey classic Big Spender.
He had shot to national attention when he gave Mrs Nassif a yellow Lamborghini in a video which went viral where he exclaimed: “Congratulations Mrs Nassif. You like?”.
Nassif’s Instagram account vanished following the viral fallout from the Lamborghini post, which saw the couple subsequently mocked in spoof videos featuring used yellow items.
Traumatised by the situation, it took Mrs Nassif several months to be able to get behind the wheel of the $480,000 vehicle.
Mr Nassif was back in the news mid-year when owners in the Parramatta Rise building took Toplace to court over claims the building had flammable aluminium cladding, cracked walls and other defects. Toplace defended the claims, saying the cladding complied with state laws.
The strata of a Canterbury development also lodged proceedings over claimed defects in the Supreme Court against two of Mr Nassif’s companies.
The company did not admit the defects and said strata proposed works were not necessary or reasonable. Toplace itself has taken City of Sydney to court over the bill for a new Rosebery intersection.
Mrs Nassif grew up in Sydney’s Greystanes. Her parents are from Lebanon and the family moved back to Beirut when she was just four.
At 16, she returned to Australia after finishing high school and did a four-year performing arts course at Sydney’s Actors College of Theatre and Television.
She put her acting aspirations on hold to focus on her three young children, and her Wiping Tears charity helping underprivileged families across Australia.
She told the Telegraph in May she didn’t mind “waiting a little longer” on her acting.
“It is about the right opportunity coming my way,” she said.
“I just feel like it is still not the right time for me. I don’t mind waiting longer and if it never comes, it is not my journey.”
Originally published as Sydney property developer Jean Nassif busted with cocaine in police sting at Star Casino