X Factor and Home And Away star Luke Jacobz faces losing $100,000 loan to Members Alliance family
FORMER X Factor host Luke Jacobz faces losing $100,000 to people he called friends — the flashy family behind the collapsed Members Alliance empire.
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EXCLUSIVE
THE 2012 Members Alliance Christmas party had the X Factor — literally.
The Gold Coast-based property investment business was riding high, so the founding Marlborough family splashed out to have the TV talent show’s judge Guy Sebastian and host Luke Jacobz entertain their workers at the plush Palazzo Versace hotel.
“We became instantly good friends and I have been catching up with them ever since,” Jacobz — real name Luke Ashwood — told lawyers from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in February this year as part of its ongoing investigation into the failure of about 30 Members Alliance companies with combined debts of more than $40 million.
MORE: The Members Alliance scandal explained
MORE: The lavish lifestyle of Braiden Marlborough and Maighan Brown
Asked who he knew in the family, Jacobz said Members Alliance founder Richard Marlborough and wife Deborah, along with their children Ali and Braiden, plus Deborah’s cousin Ralph and Richard’s mother, ex-wife of controversial former West Australian politician Norm Marlborough.
The mother’s name “has escaped me right now,” he told the lawyers. “She comes and cleans the house.”
“Their house or your house?” one asked.
“Their house. When I go and stay with them, I tend to sleep in a bit because we tend to party on into the night, so I’d wake up to the vacuum cleaner going.”
Court documents filed by ASIC reveal that such was Jacobz’s connection to and confidence in the Marlboroughs, 11 months ago he lent them $100,000 — unsecured — on the promise of a 25 per cent return. He didn’t ask what they planned to do with his cash.
MORE: Richard Marlborough charged with fraud
“We talk about wine and restaurants and my girlfriends or my travelling and, you know, I’m not a business person,” the ex-plumber said. “I work in television. I act. I love it. That’s what I do. I don’t do business. So if I was to ask them questions, they would answer me and I’d probably have no idea what they’re saying.”
Had he known what they would do with his money he would have been shocked.
Inside a day, $16,000 had been shifted onto Richard and Deborah’s home loans and $28,000 used on repayments on his Rolls Royce. Their life and health insurance premiums got paid, as did their power bill.
A further $20,000 was sent to Braiden, who immediately transferred it to the account of Liam Young — formerly Members Alliance’s chief legal eagle.
It then left Mr Young’s account for the coffers of a property investment group called Benchmark Wealth, which rose from the ashes of Members Alliance in 2016 before also collapsing. Mr Young set up Benchmark and Braiden worked there after the failure of Members Alliance left him jobless.
In an affidavit filed with the Queensland Supreme Court in March, ASIC investigator Paul Dunn said the Marlboroughs misled Jacobz and “applied the proceeds of the loan for their personal use and in furtherance of unlawful phoenix activity involving Benchmark, which was likely trading while insolvent when those proceeds were applied to it.”
There is no suggestion Jacobz has done anything wrong. ASIC’s submissions to the court describe him as an “aggrieved person” under the Corporations Act, saying orders ought to be made to protect his interests. He declined to comment.
Mr Dunn said Mrs Marlborough had a “significant liability” to the Members Alliance group, having received $750,000 over three years which she used to pay mortgages on family properties. She also owed nearly $40,000 to the tax office, he said.
(Mr Marlborough owes it $26.5 million.)
ASIC had gone to court seeking to stop the Marlboroughs from selling more assets after a property, Porsche and Mercedes SUV had already been offloaded. The property brought in $450,000, the Boxster $68,000 and the Benz, $72,000.
ASIC didn’t want the couple selling any of their other four Gold Coast properties — with an estimated combined worth of about $3.6 million — or his Rolls Royce Wraith, bought in 2014 with a $682,000 loan from Toyota Finance Australia.
“Given Mrs Marlborough’s personal financial position, Mr Marlborough’s bankruptcy, Mr Marlboroughs recent criminal charges and the pending liability to Mr Ashwood, ASIC is concerned that the Marlboroughs will take steps to dissipate assets (such as) Mrs Marlborough’s real estate holdings and Mr Marlboroughs Roll Royce motor vehicle.”
While Jacobz knew Members Alliance was being wound up, he was unaware the Marlboroughs were in dire financial straits.
“The discussion was, ‘We can have a loan agreement, $100,000, and then we’ll give you 125 back at 12 months’.”
Asked whether he read the loan agreement before signing it, Jacobz replied: “I scanned over it and it was, this, this, this, and then it’s — it’s all like that to me. It looks like ‘The Matrix’.”
In February Mrs Marlborough told ASIC investigators she was “100 per cent, absolutely” confident of being able to pay back Jacobz (at the end of this month).
She claimed to the investigators that the initial plan for Jacobz’s money was to expand a business she had invested in called Internet Removals.
While she went on to tell them the expansion didn’t go ahead, financial records indicate a loan of $19,900 was made to Internet Removals, a Gold Coast-based business which says it wipes “malicious material” from the web.
Mr Dunn told the court he did not believe the financial records were true.
“The books … provided to ASIC are inconsistent with the evidence of Mrs Marlborough in the Deborah Marlborough Examination, inconsistent with books and records obtained from other parties and may therefore have been created after the Deborah Marlborough Examination.”
Internet Removals’ sole director is Zach Featherstone, son of Gold Coast detective turned private investigator Mick Featherstone. Mick and Zach were charged with money laundering in 2016 over an alleged boiler room scam which is unrelated to the Marlboroughs’ business activities. The Featherstones’ case was mentioned in Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday.
In June, the Queensland Supreme Court ordered that Deborah and Richard Marlborough could only sell their properties if ASIC was kept informed and the net proceeds were paid to the court.
The Rolls was repossessed in April. It was expected to sell at auction for $350,000 — about $55,000 less than the amount outstanding on the car loan.
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Originally published as X Factor and Home And Away star Luke Jacobz faces losing $100,000 loan to Members Alliance family
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