Corrupt Ipswich City Council boss Carl Wulff sentenced to five years’ jail

A corrupt former boss of Ipswich City Council, who took more than $200,000 in bribes from contractors, has been sentenced to five years in jail.

A CORRUPT boss of Ipswich City Council who took $241,000 in bribes from contractors has been sentenced to five years in jail.

The prison time for Carl Wulff, a formerly powerful Ipswich CEO from July 2006 to December 2013, marks the heaviest penalty handed down so far following a Crime and Corruption Commission probe of the southeast Queensland city.

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CCC boss Allan MacSporran on Friday flagged further charges were expected from its ongoing probes into corruption in local government.

He said the jail sentence sent an “important message” that corrupt officials would be dealt with “severely.”

Wulff was among four people sentenced by District Court Chief Justice Kerry O’Brien on Friday morning.

“This is corruption going to the heart of government at the local level,” Justice O’Brien said. “They reality is that the corruption secured favourable treatment … not available to those who were prepared to operate legitimately.”

Carl Wulff has been sentenced to five years’ jail for corruption. File picture

Former prominent businessman and lobbyist Wayne Myers will be released after serving six months in jail. Picture: Dan Peled/AAP

Wulff, dressed in a suit and bereft of his well-known red-hair toupee, was jailed for four and a half years for two charges of corruption. He received a further six-month sentence for perverting the course of justice by trying to create a false version of events. He could be paroled in August 2020.

Standing in the dock with Wulff was former prominent businessman and lobbyist Wayne Myers, 64, who received two and a half year jail sentence, suspended after six months.

Myers, a close mate of late ALP State Treasurer Terry Mackenroth, had pleaded guilty to helping arrange bribes to be funnelled to Wulff from a contractor. He had acted as middleman in a “bogus consulting agreement” but quickly offered to investigators to wear a wire.

Myers had acted to “grease the wheels” at council through his political connections in a “quick kickback arrangement”, the court heard. He gave his wife a quick kiss and a wink before being taken to prison on Friday.

Sharon Oxenbridge, pictured outside court this morning, has been sentenced to three years’ jail, to be suspended after nine months. Picture: Dan Peled/AAP

Wulff’s wife Sharon Oxenbridge, wearing a striped shirt, was given a three-year prison sentence, suspended after nine months. She knowingly was used to set up a false consulting arrangement to disguise contractor bribes.

Claude Walker, a contractor for council on works after the 2011 floods, copped a three-year sentence to be suspended after nine months. Walker had paid $5000 to Wulff in cash, and transferred electronically $99,000 to Oxenbridge and Wulff’s company Bojangles in 2012 and 2013.

Claude Walker arrives at the District Court in Brisbane this morning. Picture: Dan Peled/AAP

Both Walker and Wulff had managed to hide their corrupt activities despite the CCC back in 2013 investigating and clearing the duo, after Courier-Mail articles revealing some private business dealings together.

The CCC has since 2016 been probing Ipswich council, and charged more than a dozen people in the aftermath.

That includes the once spectacularly popular mayor Paul Pisasale, who is facing charges including corruption, fraud and illegal possession of a sex drug. Pisasale has indicated he will combat the charges.