Property heiress Ashlyn Nassif wins right to cross examine officer involved in her $150m fraud investigation
Property heiress Ashlyn Nassif wins right to cross examine a police officer investigating her $150m fraud charges, gearing up for a fight over a secretly-recorded conversations with her disgraced developer fugitive father.
Police & Courts
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Sydney property heiress Ashlyn Nassif has been barred from calling multiple witnesses to give evidence in a preliminary court hearing into allegations she tried to defraud Westpac Bank of $150m.
Nassif did not attend Burwood Local Court on Wednesday as Magistrate Chris Halburd handed down his decision on an application by the 30-year-old to cross examine three witnesses at a committal hearing.
Nassif is facing charges of dishonestly obtaining a financial advantage by deception and publishing false or misleading material amid allegations she falsified documents to meet a $10.5m pre-sale condition for three towers of the Skyview apartment complex at Castle Hill.
Police allege Ms Nassif, a solicitor, submitted fake contracts to Westpac Bank over three months in late 2021 to obtain a $150m loan in order to fund about 900 apartments.
The $900m apartment tower complex was built by Toplace, a development company owned by her fugitive father Jean Nassif and which has since collapsed.
In court on Wednesday, Magistrate Halburd ruled that it was not in the interest of justice for two witnesses – an investigating police officer and Mr Nassif’s relationship manager at Westpac Bank – to attend court to give evidence at this stage of the proceedings.
However, he ruled in favour of allowing Nassif’s legal team to cross examine a second officer, Detective Senior Constable Hunter, about the circumstances surrounding a series of secretly recorded conversations between Nassif and her father.
The court heard Nassif’s law firm acted for her father’s company at the time of the alleged fraud, and that her legal team would seek to argue that the conversations between father and daughter were subject to the professional legal privilege.
The Daily Telegraph understands Nassif’s legal team will seek to have the conversations ruled inadmissable to be used as evidence against her at trial.
The court heard the conversations were captured by detectives who had been tasked with investigating Mr Nassif over separate, unrelated allegations he was operating a massive money laundering scheme through Star Casino.
While Magistrate Halburd did not detail the content of the conversations in open court, he said the prosecution case against Nassif was “very strong indeed” if the conversations were ultimately admitted into evidence.
“Should they be excluded, it very much weakens the case indeed,” he said.
However, the court heard prosecutors are set to argue that any professional legal privilege that may have attached to the conversations is void because Nassif allegedly knew the pre-sale documents she was discussing were fraudulent.
The case will return to court on November 29 for the committal hearing.
Mr Nassif has not been charged, but police have issued a warrant for his arrest in relation to the allegedly fraudulent $150m loan.
The embattled property developer is a fugitive and believed to be living in Lebanon.
Ms Nassif was granted bail in May last year after her family deposited a $2.6m surety.
As part of her bail conditions, she is not permitted to contact dozens of people.
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