Former Labor councillor tasked with helping Jean Nassif with ‘company processes’
Former Strathfield Labor councillor and Toplace executive Sharangan Maheswaran worked at Ashlyn Nassif’s law firm, where he was introduced to her disgraced developer father who wanted help to improve his “company structure and processes”.
Maheswaran, now a lawyer at XD Law, appeared before the Independent Commission Against Corruption on Friday, where he detailed how he came to know and work for Jean Nassif, the fugitive developer who ran the construction company Toplace before it collapsed in 2023.
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.
Counsel assisting Dr Peggy Dwyer, SC, 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 Jean 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 Liberal Party operative Jeremy 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.
The commission heard that Assaf’s father was a client of Maheswaran’s, who has a speciality in maritime law, and Maheswaran came to be good friends with Robert Assaf.
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’s because he was critical of the developer’s unresolved defects on his 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 Alex Hawke’s centre-right faction.
One of the lines of investigation for the commission is whether Greenwood, his business partner Christian Ellis, and former Liberal powerbroker Charles Perrottet accepted illegal payments from Nassif – who is a banned political donor in NSW – in return for damaging the political career of Elliott.
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.
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