Business tycoon tells Family Court: ‘Corrupt politician ruined my life’

A fallen business high flyer has told a court that his path to financial disaster began when a corrupt politician executed a revenge plan.

The man’s claims have been aired in the Family Court of Australia.

A former business tycoon claims a “corrupt” NSW politician put him on the road to financial ruin as part of a revenge plot for backing out of a secret property deal.

The businessman claims the politician dobbed him in over $4.3 million in unpaid company taxes in 2012 as “payback” for refusing to sell a property to a company controlled by the then-government minister.

It was the first step in a stunning collapse where the businessman’s empire was placed in the hands of receivers and saw him charged with corporate offences worth tens of millions of dollars.

The businessman cannot be identified because he made the scandalous claim in the Family Court of Australia, where he and his ex-wife have waged a brutal property battle to split up assets estimated to be worth up to $60 million.

The court battle, which has been running since 2016, has heard bizarre claims, including that the wife sold her ex’s cars for $120,000 and then buried the cash in a Tupperware container in their backyard.

The businessman claims a corrupt NSW politician enacted a revenge plan. File picture: iStock

The most recent instalment of the case saw Justice Robert McClelland order the wife to pay her ex and his mother more than $500,000 from the proceeds of their house sale, which sold well under market value at $4.8 million 2021.

Offers of $9 million and $10 million had been made on the property in 2016.

Both parties blamed each other for the massively diminished sale price.

The judge accepted the husband’s claim that his wife drove down the price by leaking damaging information to a journalist via a burner phone.

The court heard the husband once presided over a $70-$90 million a year business empire, which came crashing down after 2012

According to the husband’s affidavit, he was sent a $4.3 million tax bill in 2012 by the Office of State Revenue over the “grouping activities” of his business empire.

“(The husband) contends that the adverse assessment was effectively payback for the failure to agree to sell (a property) to a company controlled by a corrupt minister in the then-state government,” Justice McClelland told the court.

The court was told the wife sold the man’s cars for $120,000 and buried the cash. Picture: Nicholas Eagar

Facing mounting debts in 2013, a bank placed the husband’s empire into receivership and it eventually went into liquidation.

The wife accused the husband of wasting money, claiming he spent $8 million on legal fees in his numerous court cases.

Despite the chaos, the husband formed a relationship with another woman and filed for divorce.

The wife told the court she knew “the marriage was over” in 2012 and that the pair went to court over their assets in 2016.

In early 2016, the husband took out an apprehended violence order against the wife and noticed his cars were missing when he moved back into the family home.

The claims emerged in the Family Court of Australia.

According to her affidavit, the wife claimed she sold two cars for $120,000 in 2016 and buried the cash in the backyard, accessing it “as required to meet her living expenses”.

Justice McClelland noted there was no evidence that the cars were advertised, and that the wife claimed she sold them to “two strangers whose names she did not record”.

In 2017, the husband was charged with white-collar offences worth in the tens of millions.

He is set to fight the charges in the District Court when the matter goes to trial.

In the Family Court, Justice McClelland found the wife was a “poor witness” who gave “deliberately false evidence” in relation to the car sales.

He also had “concerns” about the “credibility” of the husband, who he said had a tendency to give “self-serving evidence”.

Justice McClellan gave the warring spouses 28 days to divide the balance of the house sale, which may finally bring an end to the long running case.

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