The Snitch: Salim Mehajer’s ‘fake’ tell-all interview is still costing him
THE film production company that gave him the platform to launch the defence has joined the long list of companies pursuing former Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer for money — with a source claiming the interview was for show.
NSW
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THE Sunday Telegraph has launched a new law and order column called The Snitch.
Crime reporter Ava Benny-Morrison and court reporter Brenden Hills will reveal all the hot gossip from cops and the legal fraternity from the top end of town.
BEHIND THE SCENES OF MEHAJER’S BAD ACTING
IT WAS meant to be Salim Mehajer’s moment to strike back.
In a bizarre tell-all interview released last December, Mehajer claimed a media conspiracy was responsible for his wife Aysha leaving him. He claimed he wasn’t broke or a failed businessman.
But ironically, the film production company that gave him the platform to launch the defence has joined the long list of companies pursuing the former Auburn deputy mayor for money.
A source involved in the pending transaction said Mehajer owes The Box Studios at least $15,000 for the heavily scripted interview.
“He said: ‘People think I have money but I only pay what I think is fair,’ ” the source said.
The source claimed it was one of the most bizarre projects he had worked on.
It involved Mehajer putting his own numberplates on flashy hire cars and demanding filters on his face during the editing process.
During the interview — posted on YouTube — Mehajer claimed footage of him being arrested in Ibiza in 2016 was all a set-up.
He had a questionable interview with an unidentified Spanish police officer to prove it, he claimed.
However, like most things in Mehajer’s life, that interview was fake.
“They were actors, he told them what to say,” the source, who spoke on the basis of anonymity, said.
An actor was used as a “reporter” in a sit-down interview with the property developer, who is currently in jail for electoral fraud.
However, the source said Mehajer refused to answer the questions directly. Instead, he took two days to think of his answers, which were filmed separately.
At one point, detectives turned up during filming at Mehajer’s Vaucluse home to ask him about a murder his friend, Ahmed Jaghbir, had been charged over.
“He was a nice guy, well-mannered but very bizarre,” the source said.
“He obviously is not well.”
TWIN TROUBLES OF TEDESCHI
THE state’s former top prosecutor Mark Tedeschi QC is keeping shtum on the fallout from Gordon Wood’s failed $20 million prosecution case.
NSW Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Fullerton threw out Wood’s case but was fiercely critical of Tedeschi and the tactics he used in the trial.
Wood was jailed for murdering his girlfriend Caroline Byrne but was released after being acquitted on appeal in 2012.
Tedeschi is understood to be unhappy about the comments. That is evident through the more than 100 pages of affidavits he tendered in the civil case defending his actions.
Tedeschi is in private practice now but was actually rejected from the first job he applied for after leaving the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
He is now a defence barrister at Wardell Chambers. But that was his second choice.
He was initially knocked back from Samuel Griffiths Chambers.
It seems Tedeschi’s skills and approach as a prosecutor made him unpopular with certain sections of the legal fraternity. Before he had a chance to choose an indoor plant and get the feng shui right, Tedeschi’s acceptance was put to a vote. It went against the former prosecuting lawyer by a vote of 19 to 12, according to a source.
When The Snitch contacted Tedeschi, he declined to comment other than to say “I am in Wardell Chambers and I am happy there with a lovely room”.
HOLD THE DRONE, THIS IS CRAZY
ANYONE familiar with security at The Downing Centre Court complex will know it’s hard enough getting your car keys into the building.
So how someone got a drone into the building and then flew it in a courtroom, is beyond our understanding. But yes, it happened on July 19 on level 18 of the John Maddison Tower building.
We’re told the owner slipped it past the ground-floor security and then gave a demonstration during an adjournment. So drones are now banned from NSW courts. For some reason they weren’t already.
IF YOU DON’T WIN TROY, TROY AGAIN
IT WAS meant to be one of his legacies. But almost one year after Police Minister Troy Grant flagged a review of the secretive crime-fighting agency, the NSW Crime Commission, there has been little progress.
Mr Grant denied there had been a push-back in cabinet, which has discussed his desired changes twice.
However The Snitch understands at least one minister has been actively trying to block the reforms, and it’s unlikely Mr Grant will see his plan come to fruition before he retires.
That may explain the strongly-worded tirade he launched, via The Sunday Telegraph, at the commission in July.
Submissions on the future of the NSWCC close tomorrow.