Amid recriminations over Alan Jones, one name keeps surfacing

Tech guru and former Jones protege Alex Hartman died in Switzerland at the age of 39 not long after making allegations of indecent assault against the star broadcaster.

Alex Hartman and Alan Jones.

As recriminations and soul-searching begin among Alan Jones’s friends, foes and former employers over who suspected what, and when, one name keeps surfacing: Alex Hartman.

The tech guru and former Jones protege will not be one of the nine alleged victims to give evidence against the broadcaster — he died suddenly in 2019 in Switzerland at the age of 39 after a series of business failures that had culminated in alle­gations of abuse against Jones and counterclaims by the radio star that Hartman was “demanding money with menaces”.

Though never published at the time, partly through Hartman’s reluctance to go public and partly through fear of defamation action, word of the allegations swept through Sydney media and social circles.

At 2GB, where Jones still reigned supreme, the rumours were regarded as simply more of the same kind of unverified claims heard before.

The only difference: Hartman was from a celebrated Sydney family that had recently become better known for all the wrong reasons. Alex was the son of Sydney’s “obstetrician to the stars” Keith Hartman, who guided the likes of Sarah Murdoch, Erica Packer and Cate Blanchett through their pregnancies.

Alex Hartman.

But the family had become embroiled in scandal when Alex’s younger brother John was convicted of insider trading and jailed in 2013 – before testifying three years later against his former friend Oliver Curtis, husband of Sydney PR maven Roxy Jacenko.

The Riverview-educated Alex Hartman had been an internet wunderkind who got his first computer at the age of four and became a millionaire at 17 when Telstra bought his InfiNET software - a foundation for its BigPond network.

Alex Hartman at age 16, at Saint Ignatius College, Riverview, after designing the InfiNET internet software program.

At 19, the well-connected tech whiz persuaded the Lowy family to invest $10m in his company, Amicus, but the firm hit turbulence after an attempted expansion into the US.

Hartman was diagnosed as bipolar, attempted suicide and was placed in a psychiatric institution.

But he rebuilt his business career and founded digital media company Newzulu at the age of 26. He regularly exchanged emails with Bill Gates. At one point, his LinkedIn account showed him with Julie Bishop beneath the Eiffel Tower.

In 2016, he walked away from the company and moved with his wife and two children to Geneva, to work for the family of Michael Schumacher in the aftermath of the F1 legend’s catastrophic 2013 skiing accident.

In 2019, the family of F1 driver Ayrton Senna appointed Hartman to create the Senna 360 virtual museum app.

Oliver Curtis and wife Roxy Jacenko arriving at court for his sentencing for insider trading

The details of Hartman’s death in 2019 are sketchy.

An obituary posted by his family said he died peacefully in his sleep, next to his wife, Domi, “who he adored”.

“Our hearts are broken,” his family said.

“We loved him beyond words. We felt so loved and treasured by him, and he was so deeply loved and treasured by us.”

In the two years before he died, the troubled former high-flyer had alleged to both The Sydney Morning Herald and the ABC that Jones had indecently assaulted him when he was a young man, a claim Jones strongly denies.

In October 2017, Hartman told SMH columnist Peter Fitz­Simons that Jones had indecently assaulted him in a “life-shattering” event, the newspaper says.

When Hartman had confronted Jones, the radio star had sent financial “investments”, the paper said. Jones had invested $100,000 in Hartman’s tech company Mytek in 2001 when Hartman was 21.

Broadcaster Alan Jones leaves Day Street Police Station after being granted bail. Photo: Liam Mendes / The Australian

In September 2019, Hartman again contacted FitzSimons, saying Jones’s lawyer Chris Murphy had accused him of “demanding money with menaces” after Hartman had sought financial assistance to help with debts he was unable to pay.

Jones has denied wrongdoing of any kind.

Hartman “discussed the possibility of returning to Australia to press charges or to tell the story publicly” but died before he could do so.

He also told two ABC journalists about the alleged assault at a dinner at Jones’s then-Newtown home in the inner city that left him “terrified” and “in shock”.

The stories were never published at the time, with Hartman reluctant to go public and the media outlets wary of a defamation writ.

In response to the Herald’s story last year, Jones’s lawyer ­“vehemently” denied the alle­gations, adding that Hartman was “a person who had a history of engaging in dishonest conduct”.