$1m in payments at centre of Rocky Elsom fraud conviction

Documents presented to a criminal court in France detail contentious payments totalling hundreds of thousands of euros made by ex-Wallaby captain Rocky Elsom.

Rocky Elsom during his playing days in Wallabies colours. Picture: Getty Images

Documents presented to Narbonne criminal court in France have detailed 675,000 euros of contentious payments made by the former owner of the Narbonne rugby club, ex-Wallaby captain Rocky Elsom, which resulted in him being sentenced in absentia to five years jail for fraud, embezzlement and forgery.

The lawyer acting for the liquidators of Racing Club Narbonne Mediterranee (RCNM), Patrick Tabet, has told The Australian that payments were made without authorisation from the club’s board even though Mr Elsom was supposed to ask for that authorisation.

“He took the chequebook and made payments, there were payments made to players and to companies,’’ Mr Tabet said.

Elsom was sentenced in absentia by a court in France.

Former Narbonne player Daniel Halangahu. There is no suggestion Halangahu has done anything wrong.

Mr Tabet said there are companies in Narbonne which helped the club at the time Mr Elsom was president and they had invested in the club to help it carry on.

“And this money quickly disappeared,’’ Mr Tabet said.

Mr Tabet had told the court Mr Elsom made a “completely unjustified” payment of €79,000 to a former coach and gave a monthly salary of €7,200 to an Australian resident who “never came to Narbonne”.

The Australian has obtained a document, in redacted form, presented to the Narbonne court during the hearing on October 11 this year detailing the payments which came to an amount of 675,532 euros.

It shows nearly all of the payments were made in June 2016 shortly before Mr Elsom diluted his shares to become a minority owner of around 20 per cent and with no control.

However Mr Elsom told The Australian on Monday that none of the community monies, also known as city money, was given to the club while he was president, and so he couldn’t have spent those funds as has been suggested.

He said the money to make the payments came from the bank account of the club, which at the time had a balance of around 800,000 euros.

French court documents in the Rocky Elsom case

Mr Elsom said: “They’re saying that the city people put money in, and I used that to pay for things. And that’s not true at all. They didn’t put any money in while I was president. And they weren’t obligated to until I issued them the shares, and they got to vote on who the President was. So it (the community money) was held in an escrow account. It’s not able to be used. Those claims are easily disproved for me, because there’s no chance that I used any of their money.”

Mr Elsom is in Ireland, bracing for arrest by Irish authorities as part of an extradition process to France, and denies all of the convictions.

The former Wallaby told The Australian on Monday that he still has not received detailed information from the court about what he was found to have been guilty of.

Mr Elsom is preparing to contest the court’s ruling, firstly by opposing the finding because it was heard without him being able to mount a defence and then if that fails with an appeal. He says as president and 97 per cent majority shareholder of the French club at the time, he could spend money on the club as he saw fit, and said he was frugal throughout.

“I have been morally and administratively doing the right thing by the club at all times,’’ he said.

However Mr Tabet said he was confident that Mr Elsom knew of the court proceedings because close friends of the former player had been questioned in relation to the matters.

“The judge tried several times to find him and to inform him,’’ he said.

“Rocky Elsom was issued with a summons on several occasions. One was sent to Australia to an address at Epsom Road, Rosebery. He was for example informed of a summons to appear (for questioning) on 23 April 2019.

“He got a summons in Australia, a summons was sent to (Mr Elsom’s company) Elke Elbow also in Australia. His lawyer in Montpellier, Ms Cordero was contacted in 2019. Cordero said – and this is recorded in the official police report – that she was no longer Elsom’s lawyer because she could not manage to get documents from him. An arrest warrant was issued 27 June 2023. And then we get to the trial this month.”

Mr Tabet added: “I am certain that he knew about it (the case against him) because the players would have told him. The players were questioned too by the police and among these players are close friends of Elsom.

“I am certain he knew and decided he didn’t want to explain himself.’’

Mr Elsom told The Australian he has never lived or worked at the address in Rosebery, that he had not received a summons at his company address and that he did not know of a lawyer called Cordero.

The court documents obtained by The Australian show that in July 2016 there was a flurry of payments from the RCNM.

These were listed as being nearly 88,000 euros for settlement of debts; 40,000 euros for settlement of players debts, repayment of a 50,000 euros loan and nearly 80,000 euros in exceptional charges relating to a termination of a contract. A further 42,000 euros and 26,000 euros was advanced and another line item of just over 17,000 euros which had no explanation was paid out that same month.

On July 1 of that year, 100,000 euros was paid as part of a service provision agreement with a 2016-2017 season invoice to the same entity of 180,000 euros.

Money also went to a company for supplying of beers and taps worth 37,000 euros and then on July 8, 2016 there was the payment of three invoices for provision of services tallying 195,000 euros excluding tax.

The document which was presented to the court also detailed an employment contract dated November 23, 2015, for a person, whose name is redacted, to receive a monthly salary of 1946 euros and a return plane trip to New Zealand as well as bonuses. The monthly salary for that same employee, signed in a document dated June 29, 2016 was increased to 6573 euros for the 2016-2017 season.

The documents also say that another contract was signed on June 23, 2016 for the 2017-2018 season providing for a monthly salary almost tripled to 16,692 euros a month.

Mr Elsom said he couldn’t be certain who the case referred to.

However the club’s best player Daniel Halangahu, who may have been on a similar amount of money, lodged a claim for unfair dismissal when the new administration failed to honour his contract in late 2016 and his case has still not been heard, eight years later.