‘I will harm you’: ICAC hears details of menacing call from fugitive developer

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Fugitive Sydney developer Jean Nassif told the state’s building commissioner “if you harm my project, I will harm you” during an explosive phone call revealed at a major corruption inquiry.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption also heard on Thursday the details of an extortion attempt designed to make the former commissioner David Chandler back off from scrutinising Nassif’s troubled Toplace apartment projects.

Chandler told the corruption inquiry Toplace executive Sharangan Maheswaran claimed to have an email that asked for $5 million to be paid into a trust account and in exchange Chandler might lift a prohibition order on a defective Toplace project in Castle Hill.

But the plot failed when Chandler called Toplace’s bluff and offered to take the claims to police. Maheswaran, a former Strathfield Labor councillor, is a key person of interest in the ICAC’s Operation Rosny inquiry.

The corruption watchdogwas last week told of a broad smear campaign against Chandler, including unsubstantiated claims he would take money in brown paper bags and had shown favourable treatment to some companies.

The ICAC alleges the campaign was part of a co-ordinated effort by Nassif to undermine Chandler and prevent him from policing substandard building projects. The ICAC is investigating whether Nassif paid a $2 million bribe to several Liberal operatives, including a brother of former premier Dominic Perrottet, to harm Chandler and exact other outcomes for Toplace.

Chandler was appointed to clean up the building industry in 2019 amid an explosion of defective apartment projects across Sydney.

The ICAC has previously heard intercepted calls in which Nassif ranted about Chandler and vowed to “f–k him sideways”.

Chandler on Thursday recounted a fiery May 2020 encounter with Nassif during which the building commissioner raised serious concerns about the quality of bathrooms in the Pemberton on the Park development at Botany.

Nassif fumed and became “overbearing, loud and animated” when told testing needed to be done on the development.

“He got up and really laid it into me well and truly, and said I was just a public servant and don’t you think you can just come in and step all over me because I’m an important person,” Chandler recalled Nassif as saying.

“I have run into people over the years that have given me a similar sort of serve, so I’m not intimidated by that,” Chandler told the ICAC.

“I took a breath, and then I laid into him, and I said, ‘Mr Nassif, I am the building commissioner of NSW. You will respect that position, and I suggest you start to pay attention. And for the future, this is the last meeting that you and I will have face to face. Full stop. End of play. Do not ever speak to me like that again’.”

The waterproofing issues identified in the inspection caused 250 bathrooms to be rebuilt at a cost of about $15,000 per bathroom.

Chandler said the pair never spoke again.

But his ongoing scrutiny of Toplace projects, including the 964-apartment Skyview complex in Castle Hill, continued to infuriate the developer.

Chandler told the ICAC he inspected Skyview apartments in April 2021 on the same day he received a letter from Greens upper house MP David Shoebridge raising concerns. He had also received images of potential flaws through his LinkedIn account.

Four days later, Chandler’s office issued a notice of intent to issue a prohibition order over the project.

Nassif telephoned Chandler and said words to the effect of “don’t you hurt my project, or I’ll hurt you”.

Nassif would also send “unorthodox” text messages to Chandler accompanied by a praying hands emoji to plead for a certificate of occupancy, Chandler said.

The commission previously heard phone taps in which Nassif said he was promised Chandler would be removed from his taxpayer-funded role.