Channel Nine has aired claims that accused drug mule Cassandra Sainsbury worked as a sex worker in a western Sydney brothel before her arrest in Colombia.
The 22-year-old Adelaide woman is accused of lying and deceit, including scamming money from co-workers at Club 220, a brothel near Penrith, to pay for the funeral of her mother, who Ms Sainsbury claimed had died in a private hospital after suffering from multiple sclerosis.
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Cassie Sainsbury's 'sex worker' claims
60 Minutes and Sunday Night examine Cassandra Sainsbury's life before ending up in a Colombian jail, in separate interviews with her family and fiance.
"I just feel Cassandra is not the naive sweet little blonde girl that everybody thinks she is. She's a very good liar," a woman claiming to be a former colleague of Ms Sainsbury at Club 220 told Channel Nine.
The woman is one of two sex workers who told Nine that Ms Sainsbury spent August to December last year working as a "fly-in, fly-out" prostitute, regularly travelling from Adelaide to Sydney for work.
The woman said "sometimes she would stay for a week or sometimes just for two or three or four days". Nine claims to have seen documents that confirm her movements during that time.
Ms Sainsbury allegedly worked under the name of "Claudia", and a profile showed a blonde woman in red and black lingerie who was "19 years old…classy, fun and ready to please...and in Sydney for a short time".
While the face could not be seen on the profile, the woman told Nine: "That one there is Cassandra 100 per cent. I know that outfit; I remember when she showed us she bought it. I've seen that photo, that is Cassandra 100 per cent."
Ms Sainsbury was arrested last month at Bogota Airport after allegedly trafficking 5.8 kilograms of cocaine with an Australian street value of $1.7 million in 18 bundles in her luggage.
![Cassandra Sainsbury with her fiance, Scott Broadbridge.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170522064200im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/v/y/u/z/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gw9va1.png/1495416823933.jpg)
Nine's 60 Minutes on Sunday reported claims by Ms Sainsbury's lawyers that she fell victim to an international drugs syndicate, which forced her to act as a drug mule by threatening her life and the life of her family.
Ms Sainsbury's mother Lisa and sister Khala have travelled to Bogota with 60 Minutes to visit Ms Sainsbury in the dingy and overcrowded El Buen Pastor prison.
![Cassandra Sainsbury photographed beside her luggage.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170522064200im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/w/u/2/0/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gw9va1.png/1495416823933.jpg)
Vision of Ms Sainsbury's mother Lisa Evans being alive and well apparently prompted Ms Sainsbury's colleagues to come forward after they donated hundreds of dollars to help Ms Sainsbury, who had supposedly "run up quite a debt" with a Sydney hospital because her mother didn't have private health insurance.
"We've been really scammed. It's not like she just mentioned it once or twice, Cassandra would go on and on about it," her former colleague said.
![Colombian police released this photo of Cassandra Sainsbury with the drugs she is alleged to have smuggled.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170522064200im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/v/w/t/e/4/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gw9va1.png/1495427568625.jpg)
"I think she's manipulative, I think she's a compulsive liar and I think she's conniving."
Ms Sainsbury's lawyer Orlando Herran, however, has argued that his client was threatened and forced to become a drug mule by a man (named Angelo) she met in Colombia and had wanted to back out at the last minute.
"Cassandra is not a bad person. She is a young girl [who] made a mistake," he told 60 Minutes through a translator.
Mr Herran says Ms Sainsbury's gym business got into financial strife and she found someone offering a loan and a trip to London via the website Craigslist, but her itinerary was changed at the last minute to Hong Kong, Los Angeles and then Bogota.
Mr Herran said Ms Sainsbury was told: "If you do not get to fly we will be threatening or killing your family or you."
Meanwhile Ms Sainsbury's fiance and boyfriend of two years, Scott Broadbridge, has been named a person of interest in Colombian police's investigation.
Channel Seven's competing current affairs program, Sunday Night, revealed one of Mr Broadbridge's former girlfriends was an accused drug smuggler.
In an interview with Sunday Night, Mr Broadbridge said it "came as a complete surprise" when he found out Colombian investigators had named him as a person of interest.
"Because someone in my past is a drug dealer, and Cassie is going through what she's going though, that I'm now going to be targeted," he said. "It complicates it. We are both against drugs."
The revelation came despite a last ditch attempt from Sainsbury's lawyers to block Sunday Night's broadcast hours before it was to go to air by applying for an injunction order, which was later dismissed.
Even though 60 Minutes was unable to interview Mr Broadbridge that did not stop them too levelling potentially explosive claims against him from the sex worker, who thought of Ms Sainsbury as "a little sister".
The sex worker said Ms Sainsbury talked about her boyfriend and she was working at the brothel when she got engaged to Mr Broadbridge. "She told us that he did know what she did, 100 per cent," she said.
Mr Broadbridge told Sunday Night that he and his fiancee had no secrets from each other, the claims about Ms Sainsbury's alleged sex work were not put to him.
Ms Sainsbury's mother Lisa did not openly criticise Mr Broadbridge on 60 Minutes, despite probing by reporter Liam Bartlett, but hinted at the feud between them.
"I have suspicions about a lot of people. There's people out there that know stuff and Scott's acted a bit indifferent towards us, and I mean, I'll agree to that but I don't know," she said.
Mr Broadbridge told Sunday Night that Cassie had been working for a commercial cleaning company that was once owned by her uncle Neil Sainsbury when she went overseas.
He said the new owners paid for her trip to Colombia.
But Mr Sainsbury, a former military investigator, told Sunday Night he had never owned a company, let alone a cleaning company, and that he had never employed his niece.
"My niece Cassie has never been employed by me, I've never owned a business whatsoever," he said.
He questioned whether his 22-year-old niece was as naive as she claimed.
"I believe Cassie has a bit of a history of skipping from one place to the next if things get a bit tough," he said. "I don't believe she was naive at all, she may have had knowledge, complete knowledge of what she was doing."
Ms Sainsbury's father also questioned the "late-minute" nature of his daughter's trip to Colombia, telling Sunday Night that she and Mr Broadbridge were making plans to head to the South American country as early as January.
"I said to her, 'don't go, don't be stupid'… after the big blow-up I had with her over that, she said 'I'm not going dad', and I said 'thank you'," Mr Sainsbury said.
He revealed he hadn't heard from his daughter since she was arrested last month, and implored her to tell the truth.
"I don't know what the hell is going on Cass, I haven't heard from you. I haven't heard from anyone. Just remember I will always love you, you know where I am," he said.
Ms Sainsbury has been widely reported as fearing for her life in El Buen Pastor and being pushed around because she is a foreigner in the dangerous prison. But an ex-prison inmate 'Catherine' told 60 Minutes that she is still talking to current inmates, and it's her candour that is getting her in trouble.
"No, it's not because she's a foreigner it's because of Cassie's attitude. She has to learn to get along with everybody and be silent, and be respectful," the inmate said through a translator.
Mr Broadbridge and Ms Sainsbury's mother and sister did manage to visit the prison, with Lisa Evans happy at seeing her "beautiful, beautiful" daughter.
"I don't want to be too melodramatic about this, but does she realise that it could be the next 20 to 30 years, worst-case scenario?" Bartlett asked Mrs Evans.
"Yes, she does. She doesn't want it to be, but she knows it's a possibility," Ms Sainsbury's mother replied.
Upon learning more of the details levelled against her daughter, Mrs Evans has stood by Cassie.
"I've believed, from the first second that I found out, that she is innocent, and I still believe it to this day."
"No, it's not a mother thing. I don't think it's blind faith, it goes against everything she stands for," she added. "She's 100 per cent innocent, and I believe that and I always will."
- with Alexandra Laskie