Staffer 7 participated in the vast majority of interviews. He authored the 434-page interim report and the 141-page Final Investigation Report.
Staffer 7 interviewed Como Compounding Pharmacy owner Nima Alavi five times. The interview transcripts totalled 437 pages and Alavi submitted over 200 exhibits. Staffer 7 also possessed 356 text messages between Dank and Alavi and 256 text messages between Alavi and Shane Charter.
Staffer 7 summarised the 437 transcript pages and 612 texts into a 31-page document, which he labelled ‘Alavi Statement’. Incomprehensively, although Alavi refused to sign it, it was tabled in discovery.
Alavi told Chip Le Grand, the author of the book, ‘The Straight Dope’, that “he wouldn’t put his name to what he sees as a beat-up”.
Alavi also said: “Once I sign this [statement authored by Staffer 7], I have to back it up. It has to be 100 per cent accurate. So, I went through it and started reading it and it wasn’t accurate. There were bits missing. You know how you can cut and paste to make the whole thing sound so different? There was a bit of that going on. It wasn’t a true reflection of what I thought.”
Staffer 7 overcame Alavi’s failure to sign his statement by signing an affidavit saying the statement was a true recollection of what Alavi had said in his interviews. The affidavit contained many untruthful statements.
Res ipsa loquitur, as Nima Alavi was ASADA’s only witness with any knowledge of whether Thymosin Beta-4 was dispensed to either Stephen Dank or Essendon, his statement was crucial. Alavi told the Australian newspaper that as ASADA’s reproduction of his evidence “wasn’t accurate, there were bits missing … and it wasn’t a true reflection of what he thought”, he refused to sign the statement authored by Staffer 7. Alavi was angry, having told ASADA that he had never dispensed a substance that analysed as being Thymosin Beta-4, yet, the statement authored by Staffer 7 continually implied he did.
Alavi’s anger turned up a few notches when he discovered Staffer 7 and Staffer 5 lied to him about a letter that Dank had asked him to sign on 27 February 2013. During his 29 November 2013 interview with Staffer 7 and Staffer 5, they told him that Dank had broken into his premises late at night, forged his signature and emailed the 27 February 2013 letter back to himself. Staffer 5 and Staffer 7 didn’t have a skerrick of evidence to support their outrageous claim and eventually agreed that they were wrong.
Staffer 7 tampered with the evidence and thereby breached the Crimes Act by changing the word Thymosin to Thymosin Beta-4 on 51 occasions.
Essendon AFL Drug Saga 