Former Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale’s new inmates revealed

Disgraced former Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale will be in the same Brisbane jail as wife murderer Gerard Baden-Clay and child killer Peter Cowan. This is what his life inside prison will look like.

DISGRACED former Ipswich Mayor Paul Pisasale has been moved into a Brisbane jail with the state’s highest profile murderers and sickest sex offenders.

The Sunday Mail has been told Pisasale has been moved into S3 - the same unit where wife murderer Gerard Baden-Clay and child killer Brett Peter Cowan are based at Wolston jail.

Pisasale will spend 12 months behind bars as part of a two-year sentence for extorting the ex-boyfriend of a Chinese escort he was seeing.

“He’s just another prisoner,” a prison officer said.

CCC recordings of Paul Pisasale phone calls used as evidence

Letters: Dramatic fall of former Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale

The jail also has the likes of convicted Queensland Health fraudster Joel Morehu-Barlow and triple murderer Max Sica.

Pisasale will spend most of his time in the jail in his cell.

He will be unlocked from his cell at 7.30am for a breakfast of cereal and toast. If he gains employment he will work at the jail before lunch and exercise time in the afternoon.

Dinner will be served at 4.10pm before he is locked away for the night at 6.15pm.

However, he will be allowed short visits with more than a dozen registered visitors.

Disgraced former Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale will spend a year in jail after being found guilty of extortion. Picture: AAP Image/Dave Hunt

Pisasale had already spent a night in a cell before he learned of his year-long jail stint on Thursday.

He had by then already been convicted of two counts of corruption.

With clothes slightly crumpled after his night in custody, he showed no emotion as he was led off to face his stint on the inside.

Wife Janet was not seen during his seven-day criminal trial and sentencing.

However, barrister Lincoln Crowley told the court the 67-year-old’s family were standing by him.

That was something for which the former politician should be grateful, Judge Brad Farr said in his sentencing remarks.

Pisasale has three adult children and was living in the family home in the quiet Ipswich suburb of Brassall until his incarceration.

He kept a low profile, rarely being spotted out and about.

Despite his hefty troubles with the law, some former supporters have been prepared to vouch for his character.

About a dozen references were tendered to court ahead of his sentencing, including a solicitor, dentist, and local GP.

One of those was former Ipswich Mayor John Nugent, who told the court he enjoyed close working relationship with Pisasale at council before he retired in 2004.

Ipswich had “soared to new heights” under Pisasale’s leadership, he said in the undated reference.

“Whatever happens in court, one thing cannot be denied. Ipswich is a much better place because of Paul Pisasale,” he continued.

“Whoever follows him as Mayor will have a great road to follow because of Paul Pisasale.”

Joel Barlow

A local lawyer, meanwhile, wrote a reference in August last year that he could not thing of any other person who had devoted as much time and energy representing Ipswich than Pisasale.

He said that even with the public being aware of his predicament “it would not surprise that he would again succeed as mayor should an election be called, such is the level of support he still appears to enjoy locally.”

But he said “detractors” who had once supported him were now appearing and he noticed a considerable decline in Pisasale’s emotional state.

A police raid on Pisasale’s house, car and office triggered a “severe breakdown” in June 2017.

The mayor then fronted the media at a hospital press conference to resign in his gown and socks.

He cited a flare up of his multiple sclerosis, which he had suffered from for more than two decades.

But it would later be revealed that he had been under a lengthy corruption investigation.

In fact, medical records tendered in his extortion trial would note at the time that medical tests during his hospital stay showed no new neurological findings.

An MRI showed lesions were visible, but remained unchanged from an MRI in 2013.

The breakdown was instead thought to be stress related and Pisasale was admitted to a New Farm clinic for treatment of a depressive disorder.

He was suffering suicidal thoughts and was put on anti-depressants and mood stabilisers.

Of Sicilian heritage, Pisasale was raised in a working class family, spending 17 years as a laboratory technician after finishing high school, then a restaurateur before entering politics in 1991.

He went on to serve four terms as mayor and achieved a popularity envied by other mayors – capturing an average 85 per cent of the vote.

His one-man campaign to drive civic pride in the booming city earned him the Mr Ipswich moniker.

But it came crashing down when the state’s Crime and Corruption Commission began listening in on his phone calls in early 2017 as part of its now-closed Operation Windage probe into Ipswich council.

Yutian Li arrives at the District Court in Brisbane during the trial of Paul Pisasale. Picture: Dan Peled/AAP

The phone calls uncovered a bizarre plot in which the mayor impersonated a private investigator to demand $10,000 from the ex-boyfriend of a Chinese escort, Yutian Li.

He met Li after barrister friend Sam Di Carlo organised a two-hour massage, the court heard.

That massage included sexual services and the pair started seeing each other, eating out and chatting on mobile phone app WeChat.

Li, then 37, told Pisasale she had been betrayed by her Sydney taxi driver ex-boyfriend, who she said had promised to marry her, but was already secretly married.

She asked Pisasale to “punish” the man and he readily agreed.

Pisasale then posed as a PI, threatening the man to pay her the costs of “finding the truth” or face a “very public” court case, in which he would be sued for $200,000.

“Are you prepared to pay her money to go away?” he continues.

He also threatened him with deportation, saying: “I know the Immigration Minister.”

To add legitimacy, Pisasale then ramped up the pressure by instructing Ipswich lawyer Cameron McKenzie, 37, to send a letter of demand for $8400, including $6100 for a private investigator.

But all three were found guilty of extortion on Wednesday after prosecutors proved Pisasale knew Li was not legally entitled to any money from her ex-boyfriend when he made the threats.