Jean Nassif paid Liberal operatives to get close to their ‘boss’ Charles Perrottet

A former senior executive at Jean Nassif’s building company Toplace said the disgraced developer retained a contract with Liberal Party operatives because he wanted to be closer to their “boss” Charles Perrottet.

Toplace lawyer and former Labor Strathfield councillor Sharangan Maheswaran appeared on Friday before the Independent Commission Against Corruption, where he detailed his concerns with a contract Nassif had with the lobbying firm Beckington, run by Liberal figures Jeremy Greenwood and Christian Ellis.

Perrottet was not employed at Beckington, but previously told the commission that he would help his friends Greenwood and Ellis chase unpaid invoices from Nassif by adding “political flavour” to their communications.

Maheswaran said he raised concerns with Nassif about the Beckington contract but the developer brushed off his concerns and said he was only keeping the contract to be closer to their “boss”, who Maheswaran determined was Charles Perrottet.

The commission also heard that Maheswaran was paid almost $1 million as an executive at Toplace at the same time as he nominated for local government elections without declaring that he had an association with a developer.

He agreed that he did not declare that he had a “close association” with Nassif, who ran Toplace until he fled Australia for Lebanon in late 2022.

Counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer, SC, pointed to a “candidate’s consent and declaration” form submitted by Maheswaran when he nominated as a Labor councillor for Strathfield in the 2021 elections.

As part of that form, candidates are required to declare if they are a property developer as defined in the NSW Electoral Funding Act, which includes close associates of property developers.

Maheswaran said he did not make that declaration but may have received advice about whether he met the definition of a close associate.

He was also asked about how much he earned while working at Toplace, and he said it would have been about $1.4 million between July 2020 and March 2023.

Dwyer suggested to Maheswaran that $665,332 of that was earned between December 2021 and March 2023, the same time he was a Labor councillor on Strathfield Council.

Maheswaran said he had nothing to verify that figure against so “had no response to that proposition”.

He was paid in sporadic payments usually about $50,000 or $100,000, the commission heard.

The commission also heard that Maheswaran had formerly worked at Ashlyn Nassif’s law firm, where he was introduced to her developer father who wanted help to improve his “company structure and processes”.

Maheswaran joined the firm EA Legal, named after Nassif’s lawyer daughters Evelyn Helou and Ashlyn Nassif, in 2019. Ashlyn has since been struck off after she pleaded guilty to serious fraud charges involving Toplace.

Dwyer said an unsigned statutory declaration prepared by Maheswaran detailed his role at Toplace, which included advising Nassif on improving his company structure and processes, providing views on planning matters and providing the developer with “general advice”.

Maheswaran told the commission he came to know Nassif through working for Ashlyn, who was only in her 20s when she was running her own law firm.

The commission also asked Maheswaran about his links to Greenwood, who was one of three party members who allegedly shared in a $2 million bribe from Nassif.

Greenwood was introduced to Maheswaran by another Liberal source, Robert Assaf, who was a founding member of the conservative faction of the Liberals known as the Reformers, the commission heard.

Greenwood and Assaf are both persons of interest in the commission.

The commission was told that texts between Maheswaran and Greenwood when they were both doing work for Jean Nassif suggested they were teaming up to damage the political career of former police minister David Elliott, a known enemy of Nassif because he was critical of the unresolved defects on the developer’s buildings.

“We have something that will kill Elliott,” Greenwood texted Maheswaran in 2020.

Maheswaran responded: “Your ears must be ringing. I just picked up the phone to let you know that I’ve got something decent.”

He also mentioned a story he believed was going to be published in this masthead about federal Liberal MP Alex Hawke’s centre-right faction.

One of the lines of investigation for the commission is whether Greenwood, Ellis and Charles Perrottet accepted illegal payments from Nassif – who is a banned political donor in NSW – in return for damaging Elliott’s political career.

Maheswaran said he understood that he had a shared interest with Greenwood around the Hawke faction but did not accept that the interest in damaging Elliott was related to work for Nassif at that time.

He also said Nassif lied to the commission and never told him before 2025 that he wanted to damage Elliott’s career because the MP was an obstacle to his developments.

The commission also heard on Friday that Maheswaran’s former council colleague, Labor councillor Karen Pensabene, who was a person of interest in the inquiry, has been released from her summons because of ill health. Pensabene had been accused of working with Maheswaran to blackmail former Strathfield mayor Matthew Blackmore.

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