LA confidential
Private equity partners are preparing to add their financial might to bring a new entertainment and retail base — including a 35,000- seat stadium — to downtown Auckland. It could be New Zealand’s answer to the Los Angeles- based LA Live, a sports and entertainment district.
The email Kim Dotcom claimed was proof of a conspiracy against him is a forgery, the Serious Fraud Office has said.
The Weekend Herald can today report for the first time that the SFO investigated the email, which emerged on the eve of the 2014 election claiming Prime Minister John Key was involved in a conspiracy to get Dotcom.
Its statement reads: “The SFO confirms that it carried out an investigation into this matter. As a result of that investigation, the SFO is satisfied that the email was a forgery.”
Dotcom said yesterday that he still believed the email was genuine and was surprised the SFO was able to be so definite.
“I believe the email to be real,” he said.
The purported email was from Warner Bros chief executive Kevin Tsujihara to the Motion Picture Association of America’s Asia- Pacific president, Michael Ellis.
It was dated the day Key met Tsujihara and was in the midst of Immigration NZ’s consideration of Dotcom’s residency.
It read: “We had a really good meeting with the Prime Minister. He’s a fan and we’re getting what we came for. Your groundwork in New Zealand is paying off. I see strong support for our anti- piracy effort.
“John Key told me in private that they are granting Dotcom residency despite pushback from officials about his criminal past.”
A Warner Bros senior vicepresident told the Herald at the time: “Kevin Tsujihara did not write or send the alleged email, and he never had any such conversation with Prime Minister Key. The alleged email is a fabrication.”
A spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association said: “Mike Ellis never received this alleged email or discussed this matter with Kevin Tsujihara.”
Dotcom said yesterday the email was “easy to discredit” because it did not have “headers” — detailed information showing the internet protocol address from which it was sent or the relays and servers it passed through.
As a result, he “could not use it at the Moment of Truth” — his event at the Auckland Town Hall the week before the 2014 election where whistleblower Edward Snowden and Julian Assange of WikiLeaks made claims of mass surveillance of New Zealanders.