Michelle Boag and Jevan Goulter at a Melbourne Cup event in 2018. Photo / Norrie Montgomery
Former National Party president Michelle Boag can now be named as the political figure in a wealthy businessman’s high-profile sex and corruption case.
The New Zealand Herald’s publisher NZME and Stuff have argued over several court hearings for Boag’s suppression order to be revoked since she was named in a secret recording and numerous times during the former rich-lister’s trial last year in Auckland.
Boag’s identity was highlighted in the case when the prominent businessman told jurors it was her purported association with the politically connected and controversial consultant Jevan Goulter that attracted him to using PR firm Goulter & Associates for what became an attempt to dissuade an indecent assault victim from testifying.
“Michelle Boag was someone who was very good at solving public relations problems,” the businessman said.
But Boag, who had been named on the Goulter & Associates website, has always denied any involvement in the criminal conspiracy, which eventually led to the businessman being convicted and sentenced to prison.
“However, a person who I thought was a friend, turned out to be a dishonest user,” Boag said in a statement, approved by her lawyer Davey Salmon KC.
“Jevan Goulter used my name and reputation to extract money from his client in this case and falsely told this client he was paying me to ‘manage’ the client’s reputation. This was not true.
“I later learned that Jevan Goulter had also attempted to extort further funds from his client by claiming I was threatening to use my ‘influence’ against the client. That was not true either.”
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court declined Boag’s final attempt to keep her identity suppressed after the Court of Appeal upheld the decisions of two other judges that her name should be published. The order preventing her name from being published — first made in 2019 — lapsed at 2pm today.
Boag, now a strategic communications and business consultant, told the Herald she was “gutted” about the court’s decision and had fought to maintain her name suppression to “try to protect my reputation against Goulter’s lies”.
“I did nothing wrong. I was starting a new career and I made the judgment that being associated with a grubby episode would damage my reputation ... I kept hoping the judges would say ‘you have done nothing wrong, you don’t deserve to be dragged into this’ and it never happened.”
In her statement, she added: “I want to make it absolutely clear that I have done nothing wrong and that Jevan Goulter’s lies were solely to procure financial benefit for him and him alone. I had no involvement whatsoever and this is accepted by the police.”
Since making his initial claims, Goulter, who has also worked with both the Labour and National parties, has recanted his assertions in a statement to police and said they were untrue.
Boag was the National Party president from 2001-2002 and made several controversial headlines throughout her political career, including during the infamous winebox inquiry.
In 2020, she stood down from her roles at the Auckland Rescue Helicopter Trust and then deputy National leader Nikki Kaye’s campaign for the 2020 election, after admitting she sent details of Covid-19 patients to then MP Hamish Walker, who then leaked them to media. She later quit the party after it was revealed she also leaked private patient information to National’s health spokesperson.
The ongoing legal proceedings Boag’s name was dragged into have centred around the crimes of a wealthy businessman, who continues to have name suppression.
He was found guilty by a High Court jury last year of indecently assaulting three men in the early 2000s, 2008 and 2016.
The businessman was also convicted of twice trying to pervert the course of justice by offering a bribe for the 2016 victim to drop their claims, including an elaborate and failed attempt which has become known as the Gold Coast plot.
The businessman claimed he hired Goulter & Associates for potential reputational damage issues after there were rumours he would soon be named in Australian media linking him to the indecent assault allegations.
Instead of a PR problem, however, the jury found the businessman hired Goulter to travel to the Gold Coast in May 2017 to dissuade the 2016 victim, who was the first of the three to go to police, from continuing with their complaint.
“The whole notion we were going to Australia to stop media from publishing something is ridiculous,” Goulter said at the trial about the trip, which included a meeting at the five-star Palazzo Versace hotel.
Within 24 hours of returning to Auckland from Queensland, Goulter and his associate Allison Edmonds also met with the businessman’s manager at Family Bar on Auckland’s Karangahape Rd.
Their discussions were recorded by Edmonds and throughout the conversation, Boag was mentioned, mostly by Goulter.
Goulter repeatedly claimed he and Boag were seeking a higher fee for further efforts to dissuade the businessman’s victim.
“So you know here is how I figure it, my business partner Michelle Boag, you are aware of and [the businessman] is aware of [them], thinks that I should be upping the fee on you big time,” Goulter told the businessman’s manager, according to the recording.
Later in the conversation, Goulter said: “She wants to go in there and blow sh*t up.
“If the expenses aren’t sort of covered, sort of by the end of tomorrow, [the businessman] has another problem … and it’s not me, it’s Michelle and he doesn’t want [Boag] as a problem.”
The businessman’s manager replied: “Yeah, yeah I would not mess with Michelle … [they’re] infamous.”
The dramatic emergence of the recording halfway through the Crown’s case saw the businessman’s first trial at the Auckland District Court aborted in March 2019. In the initial court decision revoking Boag’s suppression order, Judge Russell Collins said if the Family Bar recording had been proposed as evidence he would not have granted Boag anonymity.
Judge Collins’ decision was upheld by the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court.
The Court of Appeal said in its judgment: “This strategy and any potential that it might have for successful reputation laundering are matters of real public interest. So too is Ms Boag’s identity as the well-connected person [the businessman] wanted to engage.
“There would be a public interest in knowing her identity even if she knew nothing of his desire to engage her services and so was entirely blameless.”
Boag had provided a formal statement to the court and was on the Crown’s witness list for the aborted first trial but ultimately never gave evidence before a jury.
Police did not interview Boag after the emergence of the Family Bar recording and she told the Herald she first learned of the tape when it was revealed in court.
Edmonds, during her evidence in the High Court, said Boag was aware of the Gold Coast meeting and explained to jurors she overheard a conversation between Boag and Goulter after they had returned from Australia.
“I don’t know at what point she knew, but she knew about it,” Edmonds said.
When police spoke to Boag, she admitted knowing the wealthy businessman but had not been engaged professionally or received any money. She also denied any involvement with the Gold Coast conspiracy.
Judge Collins said in his decision, from Boag’s formal statement “it can be ascertained that she knew Mr Goulter had a business relationship with [the businessman] regarding a matter before the Courts and that Mr Goulter had visited Brisbane at some point in relation to that”.
But the judge added the “only real inference” was Boag had no real knowledge or involvement with Goulter and the businessman’s criminal conspiracy.
Goulter, who has also worked with Destiny Church, and Edmonds were granted immunity from prosecution from the Solicitor-General in exchange for their evidence for the Crown, which was reviewed and remained after the recording came to light. The pair also initially had interim name suppression before it was later revoked.
Speaking to the Herald about the case and her unwilling involvement, Boag said she first met Goulter in Wellington when he worked as a staffer in Parliament with former MP Hone Harawira.
“[Jevan] approached me because he liked my fashion sense. If we share anything it’s the love of colourful fashion but he’s into really expensive labels, I just love colour,” she said.
“I am kind and I always give people the benefit of the doubt and always help people. I look after people who are in trouble or need help, that’s my nature.”
Boag said she felt used by Goulter but “sometimes that happens when you have a profile”.
“Jevan was one of those people who always asked, asked, asked. He would never stop asking for something. He set up the Māori Carbon Foundation and asked for my help, he got Mark Solomon and Hone involved and I thought ‘that’s respectable’.”
Now, Boag believed Goulter lacked a moral compass.
“I called him a friend, not a close friend.
“I gave him the benefit of the doubt just like I do to lots of others who I can think I can help, and it turned out all along he was using me ... I never found out until this whole thing blew up.”
Boag told the Herald she had no regrets about how she handled the proceedings, saying “I don’t do regret”, but admitted the fight for suppression had cost her close to $100,000.
The businessman was sentenced to two years and four months in prison in May last year.
After several attempts, he was eventually granted bail pending the appeal of his convictions and sentence, which he now currently awaits after it was heard by the Court of Appeal in September.
The businessman’s legal team has claimed the allegations were fabricated stories for ulterior motives, including revenge over failed business ventures and people wanting to be part of the MeToo movement.
The businessman’s manager was found guilty of attempting to dissuade a victim during the Gold Coast plot and was sentenced to 12 months of home detention.
New Zealand entertainer Mika X, also known as Mika Haka, was also part of the conspiracy and after pleading guilty to twice attempting to stop the victim from giving evidence was sentenced to 11 months’ home detention.
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