‘Pretty bad look’: Lawyer denies lying to ICAC over $148,500 cheque, Liberal fundraiser

A former senior executive for disgraced Sydney property developer Jean Nassif has been accused of lying to the state’s corruption watchdog over how a large cheque was handed to a Liberal Party operative.

Giving evidence at the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption for a second day, lawyer-turned-Toplace executive Sharangan Maheswaran was grilled over his involvement in handing a $148,500 cheque to Charles Perrottet, a brother of former NSW premier Dominic Perrottet.

The ICAC’s Operation Rosny probe has previously heard Charles Perrottet sent a text to Nassif in January 2021 asking to pick up “assistance” for “upcoming preselections”.

The ICAC has heard evidence that Maheswaran – a former Labor member of Strathfield Council – potentially gave Perrottet the cheque at the Longueville Hotel that same day.

Maheswaran denied this, leading counsel assisting the commission Dr Peggy Dwyer, SC, to accuse him of lying.

“Mr Maheswaran, isn’t this the true situation: that you are lying to the commission about that because it’s a pretty bad look that a member of the Labor Party, as you were then, was handing over a cheque from a property developer to a Liberal Party operative,” Dwyer said.

“I’m here for one purpose, and one purpose only: to comply with the ICAC Act.”

Maheswaran was a senior executive for Toplace before the company collapsed in mid-2023 with debts of up to $2 billion.

The lawyer last week said he would have earned about $1.4 million while working at Toplace between July 2020 and March 2023. The inquiry heard on Monday that Maheswaran had given Nassif a secret phone in mid-to-late 2020, to be used exclusively for communication between the pair.

Maheswaran was a key point person between Nassif and a group of Liberal Party operatives who were taking money from the property developer.

Dwyer also accused him of lying during Monday’s evidence over his attendance at a Liberal Party fundraiser in April 2021. His ticket to the function cost $990 – just below the threshold requiring the names of donors to be publicly disclosed.

When Liberal MP Ray Williams gave a speech to parliament in 2022 accusing party operatives of stacking branches with the assistance of Nassif, Maheswaran asked Liberal Party apparatchik Christian Ellis via text message: “Oh shit, did [Williams] touch on me?”

Asked why he was worried he could have featured in Williams’ speech, Maheswaran said he feared it could be “misconstrued” that his attendance at the Liberal Party function was on behalf of Toplace.

He also messaged his Labor colleague on Strathfield Council Karen Pensabene that Williams’ allegations could cause “problems”.