Tim Meehan: The man who sparked Crime and Corruption investigation into lawyers

HE’S the former high-flying Brisbane lawyer who is now a prisoner. The first scalp of the Crime and Corruption Commission investigation rocking the legal industry. Soon after he was sacked, he was walking into the CCC to shine a spotlight on fellow lawyers.

Former Lawyer Tim Meehan is now a prisoner. But he sparked the CCC probe into lawyers.

“YOU need to call him and message him please,” solicitor Tim Meehan texted his clerk.

“He was meant to pay me $18,000 last Friday. He hasn’t. I’ve told him if he doesn’t pay then I will file the registry committal papers.

I NEED HIM TO PAY.

He’s paying into (a non-law firm) account. I’ll send you those details too. Can you call and message him please?

“I’ve said that there is a prosecutor who is prepared to drop the charges, but I won’t pull the trigger on that if he doesn’t pay.”

Meehan, once a high profile lawyer with high profile clients, is now a prisoner, the first scalp of a Crime and Corruption Commission investigation rocking the legal industry.

In 2016, Meehan, who represented Daniel Morcombe’s killer Brett Cowan, was sacked from firm Bosscher Lawyers, accused of taking cash payments from clients and putting the money into his own pocket.

But he was soon walking into the CCC, allegedly ready to provide information on fellow lawyers.

Former lawyer Tim Meehan provided the CCC with information about his colleagues.

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Meehan would eventually be sentenced to five-and-a-half years’ jail, with a non-parole period of 18 months, for aggravated fraud and eight counts of fraudulently falsifying records.

A court heard he took cash payments from clients and personally received more than $200,000.

Before long, CCC investigators had broadened their brief, looking into whether some lawyers at some Queensland firms were either accepting cash payments from clients or simply getting too close to their criminal clients and their criminal activities.

For the past two years, lawyers and their clients have been called into CCC coercive hearings where they have been grilled about money laundering, bypassing their firm’s trust account process and essentially pocketing cash payments.

Criminals have been encouraged to give evidence against their own lawyers, detailing how much cash they handed over so CCC investigators can compare the information to firm trust account records.

The CCC annual report went further, suggesting that some “professional facilitators” might be involved in money laundering and even storing “illicit goods”.

One legal professional described allegations in the report as “vague”.

“The type of work undertaken by facilitators varies and examples include helping criminals avoid detection when laundering money by adding legitimacy to financial transactions, exploiting local loopholes to support or disguise criminal activity … providing access to communication facilities such as phone, fax or email so criminal groups can communicate with each other using the facilitator’s business as a `shield’,” the report details.

Another allegation suggested “facilitators” were transporting and storing “illicit goods”.

“There’s not a f… lawyer in the world who would be doing that,” one source said.

But a senior Queensland legal figure said if lawyers were prepared to take cash payments from clients the source of the funds could be called into question.

“Section 7 and 8 of the Criminal Code make it an offence for anybody to aid, abet, or assist another person in committing a crime,” the legal figure said.

“Accordingly, if these law firms have been receiving cash then the lawyers could be overstepping their legal position as advisors and are becoming part of the criminal enterprise itself.

“That this would allegedly happen is extremely disappointing.

“Whilst the CCC report operates interest, until the CCC names the perpetrators and charges them, that stain and question will remain upon all of the legal profession.”