Secret life of drug smuggler and Penthouse Pet Simone Farrow
Even as a Penthouse Pet and aspiring pop star things never ran smoothly for drug smuggler Simone Farrow. Two years after being sentenced for running an ice supply syndicate from the US, documents have emerged that divulge new insights into the life of a drug queen, including her personal song lyrics.
Bad things can happen to men who come into contact with Simone Farrow.
Originally known as Simone Cheung, Farrow was an escort and aspiring model back in 1998 when her bodybuilder boyfriend Brett Boyd had his face blown apart by a parcel bomb addressed to her.
Since then there has been a barrister, a detective, a doctor, even a former NSW Police Commissioner whose fates have ranged from death to a failed police investigation.
Some splurged tens of thousands of dollars to help her stay out of jail, only to see her skip bail and flee interstate.
Over the same period, she has had various careers, including Penthouse Pet, aspiring Hollywood singer, starting an internet erotica website and finally as an international drug smuggler.
Now, two years after being sentenced for running an ice supply syndicate from her US apartment, documents have emerged that divulge new insights into the secret life of a drug queen.
The revelations include baseless allegations that a man close to her could improperly influence NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione. These claims were investigated and found to be false.
The papers also show that despite running an international drug operation, she had not given up on her dreams of becoming a pop star — among items seized during raids on her Hollywood home were notebooks filled with her song lyrics.
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Farrow’s links to the Sydney party scene stretch back a long way. The documents show that when her boyfriend was injured by the parcel bomb, the first person she called was colourful Kings Cross identity and nightclub owner John Ibrahim.
It was June 15, 1998, and the blast at Boyd’s Belrose home on Sydney’s northern beaches cost him a thumb, an eye and a career as a model.
Cheung, as she was known then, wasn’t at home at the time. The first she heard of it was at 4pm that day.
“I rang John Ibrahim and then waited for him and (another friend) Merrick Malouf to come and get me,” she told police.
“Later that day I went with John and Merrick to the hospital, but Brett didn’t want to see me so I went home and rang the police and they came and saw me.”
Boyd’s face was permanently disfigured and he committed suicide in 2008.
A court heard that Boyd was an employee of Ibrahim.
Cheung said that, prior to the attack, she and Boyd had been setting up an internet erotica business.
It was the first time Cheung would appear in the headlines and for a while after she disappeared from the media gaze and made a move overseas.
By the time she returned to Australia in 2009 she had transformed herself into Simone Farrow, Penthouse Pet and aspiring singer.
But as she disembarked from a plane flying in from Hawaii, the Australian Federal Police wanted her for something else.
They arrested her at the airport for importing a marketable quantity of the drug ice.
Among the other men in Farrow’s life was Sydney barrister Anthony Renshaw.
Farrow refers to him as a “father figure”, calls him “dad” or “Toto”, and periodically lived at his Eastern Suburbs apartment.
In 2012, Renshaw begged the NSW Supreme Court to return $50,000 bail money he put up for Farrow after she fled to the Gold Coast while on drugs charges.
“No one will ever be as close to me as Tony Renshaw,” Farrow told her drugs case.
“He has picked up the pieces for 25 years of my life. He is like the mother and father I never had.”
Farrow gave evidence that she met Mr Renshaw through her mother and he had arranged some clients while she worked as an escort.
Farrow’s relationship with Mr Renshaw also dragged former NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione into the spotlight while police were investigating her drug operation.
Internal AFP documents said the agency referred an allegation to the police internal investigation unit saying it had been claimed Mr Renshaw may have the power to influence Mr Scipione.
“I am writing to advise of information obtained by the AFP that Mr Tony Renshaw QC may be able to improperly influence Commissioner Scipione,” AFP Commander Mark Waters wrote in a heavily redacted letter to the NSW Professional Standards Command in August 2010.
A NSW police spokesman said the allegation, which was baseless, ultimately came to nothing.
Suffering a similar fate to Mr Renshaw was Sydney doctor Joseph Grech, who put up $100,000 bail money for Farrow. Both Mr Renshaw and Dr Grech eventually had their bail money returned.
And finally there was Xander Rian, the flamboyant “accounts director” of her burgeoning drugs operation.
When US drug enforcement agents raided the San Vicente Inn, a motel near Farrow’s Hollywood apartment, five days after Farrow’s arrest in Australia, they met Rian there and arranged to interview him the next day.
When the officers returned they found Rian dead, apparently having committed suicide.
However, Farrow did have one long-term relationship with a prominent Sydney DJ, with whom she had a daughter in 1996.
“(The daughter) stayed with me for two weeks before (the DJ) took her back due to my association with Brett Boyd,” Farrow told the police in 1998.
“Now (the DJ) doesn’t wish to speak to me.”
So who exactly is Simone Farrow? Prostitution, crime figures and exclusive private schools all featured in her formative years.
In her 2016 drugs case, Farrow claimed her mother Sylvana Antoinette Cleaver pushed her into prostitution as a teen because “my mother couldn’t pay for my boarding school fees”, which included stints at SCEGGS Darlinghurst and St Hilda’s on the Gold Coast.
She said her clients included politicians.
She told police Ms Cleaver had been in a relationship with underworld figure Sam Ibrahim and a man who worked for Kings Cross criminal Abe Saffron.
But her mother “turned her back on me” when she accused one of Ms Cleaver’s boyfriends of sexually abusing her. Ms Cleaver died in the early 2000s.
Farrow claimed she had no contact with her father, Canberra restaurant owner Patrick Suthiwart-Narueput.
Some time after the bombing that injured Boyd, Farrow arrived in Los Angeles and was going to be somebody: That was Simone Starr, internationally famous singer, model and actress. She had already posed nude for Australian Penthouse Magazine.
In February 2009 she was introduced to LA-based music promoter Nick O’Donovan, who told police his father was the promoter for the Jackson 5.
He could only get Farrow an arrangement where she paid venues to perform.
“I observed Farrow was very flashy and a needy person who thought she was going to be the next big hit as a recording artist,” Mr O’Donovan told police.
Eventually, Farrow stopped turning up for gigs and Mr O’Donovan cut ties.
Struggling as an artist, Farrow turned to drug smuggling. When police raided her 13th-storey apartment on North Doheny Drive in West Hollywood they found piles of crystal methamphetamine.
She posted hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of drugs to Australian buyers disguised as “bath products” or “small fountain kits”.
More than $580,000 was deposited in her bank account between February 2009 and October 2010, court documents said. Also in the flat were notebooks with her song lyrics.
They mostly contained unveiled references to sex and drugs, including one titled Let’s Bounce, Bounce, Bounce.
Another set of lyrics read: “I’m just a whore, your dancefloor whore, just a whore, your whore.”
According to her website, Farrow recorded two songs that were never picked up by a major label.
Farrow pleaded guilty to importing methamphetamine in September 2016, when Judge David Arnott sentenced her to a minimum six-and-a-half years jail.
She is eligible for parole in February.
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