Guy Sebastian details moment he went to police over ex-manager
Guy Sebastian has continued his evidence in the trial of his former manager who is battling allegations he embezzled money from the pop star.
Guy Sebastian has revealed the moment he approached police to raise allegations his former manager had embezzled money from him, telling a court that he resisted going into his local station to avoid a media circus.
Mr Sebastian is on the witness stand as his former manager Titus Day stands trial in the NSW District Court accused of embezzling more than $600,000 from the Aussie pop star.
It’s alleged that Mr Day failed to remit performance fees and royalties that were collected by his 6 Degrees talent agency.
Mr Day has denied doing anything dishonest or fraudulent and pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of embezzlement as a clerk or servant and one count of attempting to dishonestly obtain financial advantage by deception.
Mr Sebastian appeared in the witness box for the second day on Tuesday, telling the court how his relationship with his long-time manager and friend broke down in 2017.
The court was told that Mr Sebastian did not have a formal contract with 6 Degrees and when he moved over to Mr Day’s company they agreed to an arrangement on the same terms that he had with his former talent agency.
Mr Sebastian told the court that he was happy with Mr Day’s management when he first moved into his stable, but tensions arose and his bookkeepers were forced to chase information and clarification on issues and payments, which ultimately led to their split.
The court on Tuesday heard details of how following the dissolution of their partnership, the two men both made claims that the other owed them money.
Mr Sebastian told the jury about a meeting, after they had severed ties, in which he raised queries about performance fees.
According to Mr Sebastian, he told Mr Day that his former manager was entitled to his 20 per cent fee for any gigs that he had helped organise, but he wanted the money paid directly to him, rather than the usual practice of it going through a 6 Degrees account.
“At that stage there were a lot of requests for these statements,” Mr Sebastian told the court.
“At this stage I just wanted to really find out why it was so difficult to get those paperworks and how we tie up all these loose ends.”
He said Mr Day then attempted to claim that he was owed “trailing commissions” for the next five years.
In the entertainment industry, trailing commissions are a slice of a performer’s income that are payable to a manager for a period of time after they end their business relationship.
However Mr Sebastian said he never had an agreement with Mr Day for trailing commissions, calling the suggestion “ridiculous”.
The court was told that in 2018 Mr Sebastian filed proceedings against Mr Day in the Federal Court that prompted his former manager and 6 Degrees to file a counterclaim.
6 Degrees was placed into liquidation in 2019, the court was told.
After splitting with Mr Day and 6 Degrees, Mr Sebastian hired agent Jennifer Fontaine from Private Idaho Management to look after his affairs.
And they began investigating signing him up for a “neighbouring rights” deal to collect royalties generated overseas.
But he said it was discovered that Mr Sebastian was already signed up to a neighbouring rights company based in Canada, Premier Muzik.
“You didn’t know or recall that you were signed to Premier Muzik,” Crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC asked.
“I never had any contact with Premier. At that point, this was very new to me,” Mr Sebastian said.
He said it raised concerns that Mr Day had allegedly not remitted royalties from Premier Muzik.
Mr Sebastian said about this time he was told by the people advising him that they had a duty to report the matter to police.
He eventually reached out to police through Detective Senior Constable David Murphy, who was a friend of a close friend.
He said he had a private meeting with Constable Murphy and purposefully avoided walking into his local police station to avoid media scrutiny.
“I wanted to keep it private, due to the nature of my job,” Mr Sebastian said.
“If I’m walking into a police station, I didn’t want it to get out in the media and it to be a circus. I wanted to keep it as contained as I could.”
The trial continues.
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