Salim Mejaher sentenced over electoral fraud

Controversial Sydney businessman Salim Mehajer will have to serve 11 months behind bars over an electoral fraud plot with his sister.

Salim Mehajer will have to serve 11 months behind bars.

Disgraced Sydney businessman Salim Mehajer was frogmarched by sherifs from the court in handcuffs today — telling media “I might see you soon” after he was sentenced to 21vmonths jail for rigging votes in 2012.

Magistrate Beverley Schurr said despite Mehajer’s lawyers 11th hour submission that he recently been diagnosed with bi polar disorder, there was no evidence he had been suffering from mental illness at the time he committed the fraud.

Ms Schurr also dismissed Mehajer’s letter to the court that the sentence should also take into account he had also been a target on relentless negative media coverage.

Mehajer is only likely to serve a non parole period of 11 months and will be due to be released on 21 May.

But Ms Schurr said hoped he would seek mental health care in jail to manage his bipolar disorder and move towards rehabilitating his life.

The court heard fresh evidence today of the extent to which the Mehajer family have been left reeling by Mehajer’s increasingly chaotic behaviour which has made him an almost daily fixture in Sydney’s courts.

At last count, Mahajer is currently embroiled in some 20 criminal and civil matters, including several assault cases and a spectacular bankruptcy action in which is creditors claim he owes $97 million.

The court heard today Mahajer’s father, Mohamed blamed himself, in part, because he “spoiled his son and treated him as the golden child”.

She previously had found him guilty of 77 charges relating to a joint criminal enterprise with sister Fatima to influence the 2012 Auburn City Council vote. Fatima Mehajer was given a two-month suspended jail term and placed on a $500 nine-month good behaviour bond earlier on Friday.

Mehajer’s lawyer, Dymphna Hawkins, has flagged she plans to appeal today’s sentence and apply for bail for Mehajer to be released as soon as possible.

AAP