Cassie Sainsbury was popular, but a flake, says brothel receptionist

A FORMER receptionist at the brothel where Cassie Sainsbury allegedly worked says club’s “cougars” envied her because she was a star.

A FORMER Club 220 receptionist has dismissed recent stories that Cassie Sainsbury was a sad, “tubby” failure at the brothel, claiming she was “extremely popular” with clients.

Suzie*, who answered the phones for the umbrella company that takes bookings for Club 220, told news.com.au the other, older escorts envied the young South Australian because she was treated like a star.

“Club 220 is a cougar brothel,” she said. “There was no one her age or even close working there.

“The company paid for her to fly in and fly out. We used to get girls from Queensland, WA and New Zealand who wanted to do this work but not in her area.

“We did a lot of advertising for her, professional photos, a lot of marketing work.”

Cassie Sainsbury, 22, was allegedly a ‘popular’ but ‘highly unreliable’ sex worker.

A former receptionist for Club 220 claims she regularly booked clients for the accused drug mule.

The receptionist said the South Australian went by the name ‘Claudia’ and was significantly younger than the other escorts at the ‘cougar brothel’. Source: Tom Steinfort/Twitter

Suzie, who left the business last year, said she regularly booked clients to see the accused drug mule, who advertised as 19-year-old “Claudia” and was given accommodation by the firm.

The receptionist said she took calls from a site in North Sydney for several brothels, including Club 220 in the city’s west, which offered mainly “older, larger type of women” of various ethnicities.

“The issue with the other girls was you were getting clients saying, ‘Where’s Claudia? Where’s Claudia?’ Other girls would lose work because there was no comparison, 19 compared to a 40-year-old.”

But she claimed Sainsbury, who is now awaiting trial at a Colombian prison, fell out of favour with her bosses because she was a flake.

“She was highly unreliable and a bit of a diva,” said the former receptionist. “She would not turn up, be late, just not be contactable. She was extremely difficult to work with.

Other Club 220 sex workers envied Sainsbury because the company spent money on her marketing and flying her in and out of Sydney, said the receptionist.

‘Claudia’ took business away from the other women, said the receptionist, because she was claiming to be 19 while they were around 40.

Sainsbury is behind bars in Bogota after she was found with 5.8 kilograms of cocaine in her luggage in the capital city’s El Dorado Airport. She said in court documents that she was threatened into carrying it by a mysterious international drugs syndicate.

“She was just a royal pain in the bum. ‘I’m not doing this’ or not coming into work or answering her phone.

“I was asked not to book her any more, it wasn’t worth the business.”

Suzie said she left the brothel just a few months after Sainsbury, 22, started working there around April 2016.

The receptionist said the personal trainer contacted the company looking for work, and that flying her over was “pretty industry standard” for women who were young and had “a look”. Sainsbury’s claim she was working for an international cleaning company in Bogota was “what they all say”, added Suzie.

“It’s certainly not a glamorous life,” she added. “She wasn’t a high-class escort.

“Yes, you’re flown in but the accommodation provided, definitely by Club 220 and some other brothels, was they would sleep at the brothel. They’d have clients come in, that became sort of their room.

“They’re paying $150 an hour and the business gets 70.”

She said the sex workers usually either made money and went travelling or would have problems and be “all over the place”.

Sainsbury stopped being booked because she often failed to turn up to work or answer her phone, said the Club 220 receptionist. Picture: Facebook

The young woman was ‘a bit of a diva’, her alleged former colleague claimed.

Sainsbury and fiance Scott Broadbridge have claimed she was working for an international cleaning company once owned by her uncle. Picture: Facebook

Her comments come after sex workers spoke about the alleged drug smuggler, who was found with 5.8 kilograms of cocaine in her luggage at Bogota’s El Dorado airport.

They claimed Sainsbury told them she had cancer and her mother was dead to gain financial advantage. But Suzie said she didn’t know anything about the claims and had never heard Sainsbury claim to have a serious illness.

It was Nine News that first alleged Sainsbury worked at Club 220, and the network says several employees have told them the young woman, who is currently behind bars at El Buen Pastor women’s prison, also worked with them at a second brothel in the city.

Suzie said it was “possible” she later worked at some of the other brothels owned by the same group, as the women often moved around.

Amanda Thach from a takeaway shop next to the Kingswood brothel told news.com.au women often stayed at Club 220 overnight, leaving at about 6am. She said men regularly turned up at the back door of her cafe at 12am or 1am looking for the brothel, which is open until 5am.

“Four guys knocked on my door at 4 or 5 this morning,” she said. “I said, ‘This is the takeaway shop!’”

Her uncle Neil Sainsbury denied ever owning a cleaning service. Picture: Sunday Night

The accused drug mule is waiting in El Buen Pastor women’s prison to learn her fate. Picture: Nine News

She ran a fitness gym Yorke’s Fitness in Yorketown until it closed.

Online, the brothel advertises “Cougars of Sydney — Hot escorts on the prowl for ‘sexual satisfaction’. Can you help? Prrrr.” Images of the club on Instagram show a large chandelier over reception, plush wallpaper, dark walls and drapes, a freestanding bath and round beds.

Sainsbury initially said she thought the 18 packages of cocaine wrapped in black plastic were headphones and she had been tricked into carrying them.

After visiting her in Bogota, fiance Scott Broadbridge told Seven’s Sunday Night he believed she was “set up as a drug mule without her knowledge” and that she was in Colombia working for an international cleaning company that once belonged to her uncle.

Broadbridge, pictured with his father at Adelaide Airport, has returned to Australia after visiting her in Bogota. Picture: Kelly Barnes/The Australian

Her mother Lisa Evans and sister Khala are also back in Adelaide after visiting the Colombian jail. They too maintain her innocence. Picture: AAP Image/David Mariuz

But her uncle Neil Sainsbury told the program he had never owned a business.

Her sister Khala and mother Lisa Evans, who have also just returned from seeing her in Colombia, maintain her innocence.

In documents tendered to a Sydney court, Sainsbury claims she was threatened by a mysterious international drugs syndicate and forced to act as a cocaine mule.

The syndicate supposedly “threatened her life and the life of her family if she did not comply with their demands” and Sainsbury has applied to the Colombian authorities and the Australian Federal Police to be “placed into a witness protection program”.

*Name changed to protect identity.