Police to photograph Salim Mehajer’s leg tattoos in jail
POLICE have won a court order to photograph Salim Mehajer’s leg tattoos at Cooma prison this week to match them to CCTV footage of a cash exchange in an alleged car crash scam.
EXCLUSIVE
SALIM Mehajer’s legs will be photographed by police this week in Cooma prison after detectives successfully applied to have him undergo the procedure.
Police believe they can match one leg covered with distinctive tattoos to those of a leg caught on CCTV video during an alleged cash handover.
Detectives will travel to Cooma correctional facility in the Snowy Mountains where Mehajer is incarcerated to photograph his legs, despite his opposing the procedure.
They will photograph both legs, although according to documents obtained by news.com.au, it is only one leg they are interested in.
News.com.au understands that this is Mehajer’s right leg, which may have tattoos of a woman resembling Mehajer’s former wife, dollar signs, the initials “SM” and the word “millionaire”.
A police affidavit reveals that investigators have CCTV footage of person at a meeting “where $1250 is exchanged”, which shows “a large leg tattoo the length of the entire leg”.
Police allege in the affidavit the cash swap meeting is connected with a car crash Mehajer is charged with staging last October to avoid a court hearing.
“This meeting is captured on CCTV cameras with the camera showing clear tattoos on Mehajer’s legs,” police allege in the court documents.
Police claim they went to Silverwater prison in March to inspect and photograph Mehajer’s legs, but that “he refused to consent because the tattoo was private and personal”.
The 32-year-old was charged with perverting the course of justice over the allegedly faked crash and conspiring to cheat and defraud.
Mehajer has denied all the charges.
He was released on bail on those allegations, but was later sentenced to 10 months’ jail on unrelated election fraud convictions and moved to Cooma prison.
In Burwood Local Court on Monday, Magistrate Robyn Denes granted the application and ordered “police to take photographs of both legs … at Cooma Correctional Centre within (the) next seven days”.
The police affidavit says that when Mehajer was arrested in January on the alleged car crash charges, that “no photograph was taken of these tattoos during the charging process”.
But it alleges that “public social media holdings depict (Mehajer) with a similar leg tattoo.
“However, (Mehajer) is known to deny he has that tattoo and the images taken are not of his leg”.
Two years ago, Mr Mehajer denied he was the owner of a leg in Instagram photographs released by trendy Bondi Ink tattoo shop.
The leg featured the tattoo of the image of a woman closely resembling his now former wife, the name “Aysha”, and initials “SM”.
In February 2016, The Daily Telegraph revealed that Bondi Ink photographs of a man’s legs depicted a portrait of Aysha Mehajer on the upper thigh and her name on the lower leg.
The leg, allegedly tattooed 18 months earlier, also featured the initials “SM”, the word “millionaire”, dollar signs, and a pistol similar to one in Mr Mehajer’s 2015 wedding video.
Also on the leg were skulls, a rose and a distinctive crown, like the one used by his family company, Mehajer Bros, and which adorned the front door at his Lidcombe home.
At the time, Mr Mehajer denied the tattooed leg was his.
“You have the wrong person. Come visit me I’ll show you my legs,” he said.
A former Bondi Ink tattoo artist told The Daily Telegraph he created the Aysha Mehajer tattoo and that his client was Mr Mehajer.
“I did a fair amount of work on him,” he said. “He’s a pretty cool cat, he chooses his own designs and I blend them in.”
Rarely is Mr Mehajer seen on the street in anything but trousers, and when he did appear while on bail last August in a pair of shorts, he masked his leg.
The police affidavit did not reveal what the man with the tattooed leg in CCTV footage of the alleged meeting was wearing.
But it says that “confirmation of whether the person is or isn’t (Salim Mehajer) is an important part of the evidence”.
The document alleges that Mehajer was “the driver of a motor vehicle on his way to a scheduled court hearing” last year.
Police will “allege that this collision was a planned and stage act to prevent (Mehajer) from attending court on the day”.
Police allege the collision involved “at least seven people” in a conspiracy to defraud an insurance company of $156,780.
Co-accused persons in the alleged crash conspiracy have also denied all charges.
The affidavit alleged the crash was “an intentional act to pervert the course of a court hearing scheduled to be heard that day”.
The hearing was for charges against Mehajer for assaulting a taxi driver with an Eftpos machine in April last year at Sydney’s Star Casino, for which he was convicted this year.
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“This hearing included the allocation of a courtroom, a judge, legal representatives on both sides, seven civilian witnesses … eight police officers rostered on a shift,” the affidavit alleges.
“On top of this, the cost and the number of emergency services who responded to the collision on the day and were required to physically remove Mehajer from the vehicle.
“The physical removal from the vehicle by emergency services resulting in the vehicle being damaged further.
“And the utilising of public resources at the hospital to which he was conveyed.
“Mehajer alleged he injured his neck and spine in the collision however, he was released later the same day with over the counter pain medication.
Mehajer is due to make a NSW Supreme Court bail application for release from prison on Tuesday.
candace.sutton@news.com.au