Cassie Sainsbury: Madam’s startling claims about the accused drug mule’s life as a sex worker

EXCLUSIVE: Accused drug mule Cassandra Sainsbury allegedly told a Sydney brothel madam she had cancer and had to work as a prostitute because her fiance was unemployed.

• CASSIE’S FAMILY ARRIVE BACK IN AUSTRALIA
• CASSIE SAINSBURY A COMPULSIVE LIAR: EX-COLLEAGUE
• CASSIE SAINSBURY’S EXPLOSIVE DRUG MULE ADMISSION

ACCUSED drug mule Cassandra Sainsbury allegedly told a Sydney brothel madam she had cancer and had to work as a prostitute because her fiance was unemployed.

Tearful Sainsbury would sit crying in darkened corners of Penrith’s Club 220, where she operated under the pseudonym Claudia, telling Pamela Feranchi she was drowning in debt and had to turn to sex work to make ends meet.

The busty blonde from Adelaide built up a steady stream of regular clients in the few weeks she worked at the Western Sydney brothel but wasn’t “the most popular girl in the establishment because she was tubby”, Ms Feranchi told The Daily Telegraph.

Cassie Sainsbury immediately after her arrest with 5kg of cocaine

An image claimed to be linked to Sainsbury’s escort life.

Madame Pamela Feranchi, who worked at Penrith’s Club 220 Gentleman's Club, claims Cassie was a sweet girl who was deeply depressed.

On another day of shocking twists in an already sensational case, friends alleged Sainsbury, 22 — dubbed Cocaine Cassie as she awaits trial in Colombia for smuggling 5.8kg of cocaine in her luggage at Bogota’s El Dorado Airport — told former boyfriend Luke Tape she had cancer and he helped pay for her expensive “medical bills” before they split acrimoniously.

Cassie was a very sweet girl who was deeply depressed and didn’t want to work as a sex worker

The busty blonde from Adelaide built up a steady stream of regular clients. Picture: Supplied

Sainsbury is also alleged to have spun a web of deceit around her fellow sex workers at Club 220 and a brothel on Sydney’s northern beaches, telling them her mother had died of MS. Her sympathetic co-workers then paid for her mother’s funeral costs.

CASSIE’S FULL INTERVIEW FROM BOGOTA PRISON

Speaking for the first time about Sainsbury’s involvement at the club, where she abruptly stopped working in December, Ms Feranchi said: “Cassie was a very sweet girl who was deeply depressed and didn’t want to work as a sex worker.

“She rang me crying from Adelaide asking for work saying her fiance wasn’t working, he was living off her, and she needed the money to support him — no girl chooses to be a sex worker unless they absolutely have to.

The Penrith brothel where Cassie was employed as a fly-in fly-out sex worker.

Less than salubrious: The front of the brothel, where Cassie allegedly used to “cry in the corner”.

“She never took drugs or drank, the most I ever saw her drink was a beer here and there.

“I felt for her, sometimes she would cry in the corner eating pizza, chips and gravy. She wasn’t the most popular girl, God love her, she was a bit tubby, even though she was a personal trainer.

“She was a complete mess, you could tell she did not want to be there but she had big money problems.

“She told some of the other girls her mother was no longer alive and me that she had been diagnosed with cancer, she broke my heart.

“Some nights she was such a mess and in tears she couldn’t see clients and I would tell her not to work.”

Cassie Sainsbury allegedly told a co-worker she turned to the sex industry to support her jobless fiancee Scott Broadbridge. Picture: Facebook

Yesterday, having initially insisted to Colombian authorities she knew nothing about headphones in her luggage containing cocaine, Sainsbury changed her story, with lawyers now claiming she was forced to act as a drug mule by members of an international drug drugs syndicate who had threatened her family.

She has applied to the Colombian authorities and Australian Federal Police to be placed into a witness protection program and has been moved into a private cell in a new wing of El Buen Pastor prison, where she is safe from threats and overcrowding.

Cassie Sainsbury signals to photographers from inside the jail where she is being held in Bogota, Colombia. Picture: Nathan Edwards

Sainsbury maintained she met a guide on the streets of Bogota, known only as Angelo, who told her he could get her cheap headphones for her bridal party, which she then bought in bulk. She was arrested on April 13 at Bogota’s El Dorado airport with 18 parcels of cocaine, which she said she believed were just headphones.

Her mother Lisa Evans, sister Khala and fiance Scott Broadbridge last week visited her in Bogota.

He and Sainsbury’s family have not spoken since the arrest but were last night on the same flight back from Los Angeles to Sydney.

Originally published as Cassie Sainsbury: Madam’s startling claims about the accused drug mule’s life as a sex worker