Lawyer Sharangan Maheswaran told the commission that he had personally raised the alleged shakedown with Chandler, claiming Nassif believed a third party was demanding $5 million in exchange for overturning a prohibition order on the Toplace project.
Maheswaran said Nassif was "taking this very, very seriously" and was prepared to pay the sum, prompting Chandler to advise that any evidence of a shakedown should be referred to police – an avenue Nassif reportedly declined to pursue.
Counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer, SC, suggested the fabricated extortion claim was a tactic to pressure Chandler, an independent office holder tasked with cleaning up the building industry; Maheswaran rejected the suggestion.
The commission also heard that Nassif accused contractor Navid Ardestani of leaking defect evidence to Chandler, a charge Ardestani denied, citing a LinkedIn post as the source of the alleged leak and pointing to text messages about unpaid invoices.
In a separate line of inquiry, Maheswaran admitted offering $1,000 to Liberal lobbyist Jeremy Greenwood to secure a media story alleging former police minister David Elliott breached COVID‑19 restrictions by having an affair, a claim Elliott has denied and for which there is no evidence of wrongdoing.
Maheswaran is also a person of interest in the broader Operation Rosny inquiry, facing allegations of blackmailing former Strathfield mayor Matthew Blackmore and illegally recording a fellow councillor, as well as commissioning surveillance on Elliott.
The ICAC continues to investigate whether Nassif’s alleged extortion scheme and Maheswaran’s media‑purchasing attempts constitute corruption, and what impact they may have had on pending regulatory actions against Nassif’s developments.