How Burnside councillor Julian Carbone’s Instagram bikini scandal strategy backfired
When a 17-year-old girl accused him of messaging her about a bikini photo, instead of apologising Burnside councillor Julian Carbone demanded her name and address.
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Burnside councillor Julian Carbone had plenty of opportunities to admit he posted an inappropriate comment on Instagram about a young girl posing in a bikini.
Instead, the 41-year-old Liberal Party member went on the offensive, demanding to know the 17-year-old’s name and address so his lawyers could take defamation action over a formal complaint she lodged against him with the help of an adult.
It was a strategy that backfired spectacularly, with Mr Carbone resigning this week after two terms on the council over the past 20 years, following an official investigation that found he had breached its code of conduct by messaging the teenager.
The inquiry by Adelaide law firm Mellor Olsson involved an interview with Mr Carbone where he said the comment was either sent by mistake, his social media accounts had been hacked, or a friend had done it as a prank.
Legal letters exchanged between Mellor Olsson and Mr Carbone’s solicitor, Blake Wadlow, reveal he maintained this position throughout the five-month investigation, which involved a forensic examination of his Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.
In his report, cyber security expert Mark Gare said he had been instructed to investigate Mr Carbone’s “interactions with visitors to his site, in particular with underage females”.
Mr Gare determined Mr Carbone’s Instagram account had sent the post about girls in bikinis during cold weather to the 17-year-old at 5.06am on November 27 last year.
He also found “many accounts” being followed by Mr Carbone “that would be considered inappropriate for a work account”.
“Of the 1243 Instagram accounts that Mr Carbone is following, there were many examples with no apparent connection to his role as a Burnside councillor,” he said.
As The Advertiser revealed this week, some of the accounts belonged to women posing provocatively in various states of undress.
However, Mr Gare said he did not find any evidence of publicly visible posts by Mr Carbone “that were considered rude, offensive or inappropriate”.
“Analysis of Mr Carbone’s social media posting and interactions with other publicly visible posts were professional, polite and articulate,” said his report.
Mr Gare said neither was there evidence of any inappropriate behaviour involving youths on any of Mr Carbone’s social media accounts.
While some of the accounts he followed belonged to minors, Mr Gare said these involved posts he had made about a skate park.
“Mr Carbone’s posts and interactions were professional and appropriate in all cases,” he said.
“I note that Mr Carbone is an experienced, sophisticated social media user and that he has used his multiple accounts to cross-promote his activity and as such expand his reach.
“This is a good and professional social media practice, however it brings the need for careful management and controls.”
Mr Wadlow seized on the report, threatening defamation action against the teen and a local government employee who helped her prepare the complaint, claiming they had unjustly portrayed Mr Carbone as a “predatory male”.
Letters sent by Mr Wadlow to Mellor Olsson in February show that Mr Carbone took particular offence to allegations in the girl’s complaint that his unsolicited contact was “tantamount to grooming”.
He also strongly objected to a statement in the complaint that he followed “a concerning amount of young females” on his Instagram account.
In one letter in February, Mr Wadlow demanded to know the girl’s name and address, saying that a defamation concerns notice already had been sent to the unidentified male who had helped her.
He argued Mr Carbone would not be able to defend himself if he did not know the full context of the complaint laid against him by the girl.
Mr Wadlow said the teenager was “not a protected person”.
“There are no criminal proceedings, indeed South Australia Police have dismissed the incident, confirming that it does not warrant investigation,” he wrote.
In another letter, Mr Wadlow said the girl had “manufactured circumstances and has manipulated ‘facts’ to engorge the matter into one of sexual misconduct”.
“The complainant has taken what is otherwise an innocent message, sent by mistake and without context, and attempted to manipulate the reader into believing Cr Carbone is a paedophilic ‘predatory male’, which he is not,” he wrote.
Mr Carbone demanded the girl retract her statements during an interview with Mellor Olsson in March.
According to a written summary by partner Anthony Kelly, Mr Carbone was “frustrated with how this all came about”.
“(He) couldn’t understand why the complainant had not wanted to engage with him or discuss a resolution, including why she wanted to proceed straight to an investigation and why she had been so ‘nasty’ about it,” he said.
Mr Kelly said Mr Carbone expressed an interest in meeting with the girl “to be able to explain that the message had been sent by mistake and she was not the intended recipient”.
He also wanted the girl to “withdraw the words she used and apologise for the use of those words”.
“He was offended and indicated that he thought they were used to cause the maximum political damage and to hurt him personally, professionally and politically,” he said.
“He thought someone was influencing her to do this, noting that the person helping is in the industry, and considered that somehow this was being done for personal gain.”
The teenager, however, refused to back down and met with Mr Kelly in April to pursue her complaint.
In a letter to her summarising the meeting, Mr Kelly said she had lodged her complaint “because you thought the message was unprofessional and inappropriate and it wasn’t sent with the right intentions”.
“You also advised there were no political motivation behind your complaint,” he wrote.
“In terms of outcomes, you wanted Cr Carbone to take responsibility for sending the message.
“You indicated that you had felt extra stress from the letter you received from Cr Carbone’s lawyer (threatening defamation).”
In his final report discussed by Burnside Council on Tuesday night, Mr Kelly found Mr Carbone had breached its code of conduct by sending the Instagram message to the teenager.
He recommended an “educative approach rather than a punitive one” should be taken, suggesting Mr Carbone be ordered to publicly apologise and undergo social media training.
It was not an option a besieged Mr Carbone chose to take.
After three days of protesting his innocence in media statements and radio interviews, he tendered his resignation to Burnside mayor Anne Monceaux on Thursday.
While using his Facebook account to “humbly apologise” for any embarrassment caused to the council, he made no personal apology to the girl who brought his political career to a premature end.
As for his other social media accounts, they were deleted before his resignation.
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