Adam Ebode: Wyndham Vacation Club Asia Pacific employee jailed over attempt to blackmail bosses

A salty salesman angered over his work’s alleged ‘boy’s club’ culture has been jailed after trying to extort his bosses with X-rated videos.

A Bentleigh East man has landed in court over an attempt to blackmail his bosses for $65,000. Picture: Generic

A disgruntled timeshare salesman who tried to blackmail his bosses by claiming he had X-rated videos of employees at wild afterparties has been jailed.

Adam Ebode, 37, was jailed for six months County Court on Thursday after his masterplan to siphon $65,000 from Wyndham Vacation Club Asia Pacific came undone.

The court heard the Bentleigh East man phoned company president and managing director Barry Robinson under the guise of ‘private investigator’ Allan Dodds in January 2019, claiming he had more than 100 videos including footage of employees snorting cocaine at Christmas and New Year’s afterparties.

Ebode left the company after seven months in November 2018 after a WorkCover investigation found he had suffered from stress, Judge Wendy Wilmoth heard.

“ (Ebode told Mr Robinson) he had toilets swabbed for drugs … he said that he would go to the media and the business would be brought down,” the prosecution said.

“(He said) he had been approached by multiple staff members from the company and he had gathered all original videos and documents.”

Ebode asked Mr Robinson, who was overseas at the time, to fly to Melbourne three days later to reach a “resolution”.

The court was told Ebode Instead met with senior vice president human resources and customer experience Bruce Harkness as Mr Robinson was unavailable.

The company hired a private investigator to take photos of the afternoon meeting while Mr Harkness conducted an audio recording, the court heard.

Ebode revealed his true identity telling Mr Harkness he had been “poorly treated” by management and that the business was a “boy’s club”.

Ebode produced a video of an unknown person snorting cocaine at an unknown location before stating he had been in contact with a member of the media who offered $65,000 for the footage.

Ebode also claimed he was possession of a video of a “gang rape” but would not produce footage to Mr Harkness.

“This is a very serious situation which could get messy, but we can get rid of it,” Ebode said.

Ebode asked for “above” $65,000, leaving Mr Harkness with a 6pm deadline for payment.

The company made no payment to Ebode and alerted police who later linked him to a phone number used to call the businessmen.

Ebode told the court he and up to 11 other employees had been considering a class action after they were put on performance plans which were “designed to fail” and underpaid $65,000 in commissions.

He said concerned workers had to use fake names to get through to management via phone call otherwise they would be ignored.

“I think it was stupid and illegal and criminal for what I did, I felt very desperate … I thought it was the only way we could get through to them,” he said.

Ebode’s lawyer said his client viewed himself as a “white knight”.

Ebode is employed as a car salesman and has recently formed a new relationship, the court heard.

“It’s a circumstance where he has pursued this because of a sense of grievance in relation to money — that had been discussed over a long period of time — among powerless people that were owed,” the defence said.

Judge Wendy Wilmoth ordered Ebode serve a 12 month community corrections order upon his release.

“You demanded a considerable amount of money and made consistent demands,” she told Ebode.

“This had the hallmarks of a well considered deception. It was not a compulsive, one off offence.”