Daughter Claims Father Coerced Her Into Falsifying Records for $150 Million Loan

The daughter of a fugitive property developer admitted to falsifying documents for a $150 million construction loan under pressure from her father, a Sydney court has heard.

Ashlyn Nassif pleaded guilty in June to providing false or misleading information to secure the loan from Westpac, which financed the construction of three apartment towers in Sydney’s northwest in 2021.

The 32-year-old accepted her role, but her lawyer, Murugan Thangaraj SC, argued on Monday that her “notorious” father was also complicit.

The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is investigating allegations that NSW Liberal powerbrokers accepted a $2 million payment from Jean Nassif, violating the NSW Electoral Funding Act.

Jean Nassif, now 58, had offered to appear via video link on Friday but produced a medical certificate to excuse his absence. He fled Australia for rural Lebanon in 2022 and has previously denied any wrongdoing.

Thangaraj told Burwood Local Court on Monday that his ex-wife had described enduring a decade of coercive control, a pattern consistent with how he treated his daughter.

The lawyer told the court that Jean Nassif would instruct his daughter to lose weight or undergo weight-reducing and cosmetic surgeries so “she could look better and he could show her off”.

“She was hardly the glamorous heiress as portrayed,” Thangaraj stated.

Her father, who headed the failed construction firm Toplace, is being pursued by NSW Police following a two-year fraud investigation.

A warrant has been issued for his arrest, and 57 companies linked to Toplace are in administration.

“How could any person leave their child to face charges like this for the benefit of his company—to make her fend for herself, to sell her property for her legal fees… what does that say about who he is?” Thangaraj told the court.

Before his departure, Jean Nassif told his daughter he was “desperate” for the Westpac loan, her lawyer said in court.

“She agreed to do what she should not have, and she has explained how she succumbed to her father’s pressure.”

“If she were not working for him, or if he were not her father, she would never have committed this offence.”

The prosecution has argued that Ashlyn Nassif knew the purchasers and contractors at Toplace did not meet the definition of an “at arm’s length” transaction. The defence has disputed this claim.

She was due to be sentenced on Monday afternoon.

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