The identity of the person or persons responsible for sending extremely defamatory poison-pen emails about senior staff and councillors at Hurstville may be revealed this week.
For more than a year "Jane Doe", "Deep Throat", "concerned resident" and "Elvis Presley Is Alive" have been sending emails to people, including journalists and members of parliament, making allegations of corruption, cronyism and sexual impropriety against Hurstville councillors and staff.
"It is an open secret [name deleted] is having a long-term affair with [name deleted]. Every member of staff is aware of this. They spend ratepayers money to dalliance in hotel rooms around Australia and overseas (China)," read one of the emails from "Deep Throat" sent to this reporter and others in October last year.
The email also suggested that favours were being done for certain developers, councillors were organising jobs for mates and that full-time employment was organised to buy the silence of a woman who complained about being sexually harassed by a former councillor.
The last straw came in November last year when an email was widely circulated accusing a councillor of failing to declare a $3000 donation. The accusation was false and as a result the council voted to engage accountancy firm KPMG to conduct a forensic investigation in an attempt to trace who was behind that email and other anonymous emails.
It is understood the investigation will cost Hurstville ratepayers more than $50,000.
An interim report by KPMG is expected to be presented in a closed session of council on Wednesday night.
One anonymous email sent to various media outlets, including to this reporter, purported to come from a "concerned resident".
The August 2013 email had a Word document included as an attachment. The document properties indicate it was authored by a prominent council figure using a workplace computer.
The attached document urged reporters to cover the upcoming trial of the then Liberal deputy mayor Andrew Istephan.
"I am shocked and disgusted that that the Liberal party allowed this person to run for Council knowning (sic) full well that he was charged with ten counts of grievous bodily harm. I guess they are hypocrites when it comes to one of their own," said the document attached to the email sent from concernedresident190@gmail.com.
In December 2013, Mr Istephan, a dentist, was forced to resign from council after he was found guilty of performing unnecessary dental work on elderly nursing home residents without their permission.
He escaped a jail sentence.
"These malicious emails appear to be part of a campaign of bullying and intimidation of certain councillors and staff," said one affected councillor. "I am hoping Wednesday night's meeting may reveal who's behind it."
