The Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) heard testimony that while Nassif told his Toplace offsider, Sharangan M Maheswaran, he was being extorted, another Toplace staff member was simultaneously communicating with the person accused of the extortion.
Navid Ardestani, who earlier told the commission he was pursuing payment for work performed for a developer, sent a text to Toplace employee Charbel Barakat asking him to chase the outstanding payments, writing, “Jean is not responding again, and made me look bad in front of the other builder who was going to help with the remediation work in Castle Hill. Please advise.”
Ardestani then forwarded Barakat a series of messages exchanged with Nassif. In the messages, Nassif wrote, “I don’t want to work with you guys, and you are fully paid. Stop threatening us with the union, the commissioner. Your crooked and corrupt lawyers, and with the boys, need to get paid. Stay away from me because I’m forwarding this to my criminal attorney and putting you on notice that you’re going to be responsible for any harms or damages that happen to me and my family and my business.”
Ardestani replied, “I really don’t understand your text, Jean. Get us paid, please, and we can finalise friendly. We don’t make threats, and we never did. And also, we don’t do anything illegal. Very confusing text. Get us paid, please.”
M Maheswaran told the inquiry that Nassif’s messages constituted evidence of a threat being made against him, even though the threat was not explicitly recorded in the text messages themselves.
The dispute centres on payments owed for remediation work at Castle Hill, a site where a builder was slated to assist with the project. The alleged extortion claim and the parallel communications have added a layer of complexity to the ICAC’s investigation into possible corruption involving Toplace and associated parties.