Appearing in court via audio-visual link from a prison in Sydney on Wednesday, the 27-year-old lawyer Ashlyn Nassif, wearing an orange tie-dyed top, waved through a pair of handcuffs to the large contingent of family watching in the public gallery.
Her mother, partner, sister and brother-in-law were all there, having agreed to put up a $2.6m surety to secure her release. Absent was her father, a colourful Sydney property developer whose company, Toplace, is the owner of a multimillion-dollar apartment complex named Skyview at the centre of the police investigation.
While her father, Jean Nassif, is not accused of any wrongdoing, he loomed large during the hearing.
He was among a list of 24 potential “witnesses and parties” to the proceedings that Ashlyn Nassif is banned from contacting as part of her bail conditions.
But who are the Nassif family?
Ashlyn Nassif’s arrest marks just the latest appearance of that family’s name in the headlines of Sydney’s media in recent months.
Most recently, Nassif and Toplace have become the focus of a separate and unrelated probe by a New South Wales parliamentary committee into allegations of “impropriety” against Liberal party councillors on the Hills Shire in north-west Sydney.
The inquiry – which has drawn in two of premier Dominic Perrottet’s brothers as potential witnesses – was sparked by a speech made in parliament last year by Liberal MP Ray Williams in which he alleged senior members of the party had been “paid significant funds” to install new councillors to support development applications by Toplace. Neither of the Perrottet brothers are accused of wrongdoing.
Nassif has been asked to appear before the probe, but is currently in rural Lebanon and has so far been unavailable. In correspondence published by the committee, he maintained that he has not engaged in any wrongdoing.
“I have not met any of the current councillors of the Hills Shire Council [and] I am not aware if they support my developments,” he wrote.
Jean Nassif has long fascinated tabloid news outlets thanks to a habit for ostentatious displays of wealth. In 2019 he briefly became something of an internet celebrity after posting an Instagram video in which he gifted his wife, Nissy, a yellow Lamborghini.
“Congratulations Mrs Nassif … you like?” he said in the video.
When the post prompted an outpouring of satirical copycats, he seemed to enjoy the attention.
“Focus on your own future and how you can provide a good luxurious life for yourselves, your wives, children and your loved ones … And yasss z beast is still in my garage … And yassss I like like like itttt,” he wrote at the time.
But Nassif and Toplace have drawn the attention of regulators for other reasons.
Last year, during a scandal over the resignation of the NSW building commissioner and industry veteran, David Chandler, Nassif and Toplace were mentioned in the scathing resignation letter eventually forwarded by Perrottet to the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
Chandler issued a number of rectification orders against Toplace developments in the Hills and other parts of Sydney after his inspections found building defects and in the letter he made reference to “attempts to attack my character”.
“The low point of this were the assertions made by Toplace during the course of dealing with serious defects on the Skyview project at Castle Hill,” he wrote.
In December Jean Nassif was suspended from holding a building licence in NSW for 10 years, while Toplace also had its licence permanently revoked. Although that decision was subsequently paused in January while under appeal, the company cannot take on new contracts without the approval of the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal and the commissioner of Fair Trading.
The Department of Fair Trading launched the case against Nassif and his company in relation to an investigation which found dozens of defects in three separate residential developments constructed by Toplace.
One of them was Skyview.
On Wednesday, the Downing Centre local court heard that development is now part of the police investigation.
Ashlyn Nassif is accused of having dishonestly obtained a $150m loan from Westpac Bank to fund the development by allegedly falsifying a $10.5m pre-condition.
As she was granted bail on Wednesday, magistrate Greg Grogin said the charges were related to an allegedly “sophisticated and planned” plot and were “extremely serious in nature”.
While the full details of the case are yet to be aired in court – and Grogin was careful to point out Ashlyn Nassif has yet to enter a plea and is entitled to the presumption of innocence – it was also “foreshadowed” that the police investigation may yet yield further arrests.
