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The head of a major Melbourne property development company has been granted bail after being charged with offences relating to an alleged $20 million extortion plot, with a court hearing he used an AI assistant to research the legality of his alleged actions.
Paul Fridman, 50, was released on Tuesday with strict conditions, one day after he wept in the courtroom upon learning he would be remanded in custody for one night.
Appearing in court on Tuesday and posting a $225,000 bail guarantee for her son, Fridman’s mother said the serious allegations against her son did not affect her willingness to support him.
“He loves us. He would do anything for us, and he won’t [breach bail],” she said.
Victoria Police allege Fridman engaged an overseas-based standover man, self-styled as “Mr International”, to threaten his former business partners Ash Boyd and Nigel Givoni with violence if they did not pay Fridman.
The court heard the standover man demanded Boyd pay Fridman $250,000, and said Givoni owed Fridman $20 million.
Detective Leading Senior Constable Andrew Lauder told the court on Monday that following his arrest, Fridman said he had agreed to give Mr International 10 per cent of any money extracted from Boyd and Givoni as part of their deal.
The court also heard Mr International issued threats via WhatsApp, including a threat to burn down Boyd’s house. The messages began on February 24, a few days after Boyd pulled out of a lucrative deal to develop apartments with Fridman in Queensland.
Less than three weeks later, Lauder said, two Molotov cocktails were thrown at Boyd’s house while he, his wife and two young children were sleeping inside. The March 14 fire left the house moderately damaged.
“It’s nothing short of a miracle no one was injured,” Lauder said of the suspicious fire.
Mr International’s threats continued after the fire, and after Fridman was arrested on Monday.
Fridman has been charged with four counts of threatening to shoot or burn down property linked to his alleged victims, and one count of possessing cocaine, which officers allege they found when he was arrested on Monday.
Police said they believed Fridman presented an unacceptable risk if he was released and said he had not co-operated with investigators.
“He had deleted text messages before police came to arrest him, and was unwilling to co-operate or identify accomplices that might lead to the identification of Mr International,” a prosecutor said.
The court heard this lack of co-operation damaged the police investigation’s integrity as the matter headed towards a trial date.
Magistrate Gerard Lethbridge granted bail, saying police had not established Fridman would be an unacceptable risk if released, given he did not threaten the alleged victims directly, and it could not be proven he explicitly asked Mr International to threaten to kill them.
Fridman will remain on bail until his next court appearance on June 9, but will have to surrender his passport and electronic devices, and is restrained from contacting or confronting four people as conditions of his release.
“Let me make it crystal clear to you Mr Fridman, any breach of any of these orders is a breach of your bail which will see your parents money forfeited you being arrested and remanded in custody for a minimum of 12 months, but more likely two years,” Lethbridge said.
Police also told the court on Monday they found Fridman had asked ChatGPT a series of questions, including “Is it legal in Australia to sell debt to a third party?” to which he received the reply “Yes”. The court heard Fridman also asked the AI assistant, “What happens if that person you’ve sold the debt to turns violent?”
Under cross-examination, Lauder said police couldn’t be sure whether Fridman performed these searches before or after the firebombing.
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