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JULIA Gillard's high-stakes election strategy has been rocked by ex-Labor MP Craig Thomson's arrest on 149 fraud charges, including allegedly using union funds to pay for prostitutes.
Of course, the staff at Thomson’s electorate office might have been forewarned somewhat by the Channel Seven cameraman who had begun setting up in front of the MP’s office early that morning. And by the time the police arrived, many more media organisations were well set up outside Thomson’s office — with estimates of up to 10 camera crews there by “showtime”.
YOU unleashed the lynchmob.
She says the executive producer of A Current Affair, Grant Williams, had contacted her in May offering to pay her $60,000 to fly to Sydney.
I retracted everything I said
You can’t use anything I said, as I am no longer 100% sure
She declared it was a case of "complete mistaken identity" in an interview on the Seven Network's Today Tonight program last night.
The woman signed an affidavit and conducted an interview with Nine Network's A Current Affair claiming the suspended Labor MP had paid her for sex in May 2005 when she worked at Boardroom Escorts. In fact, the woman was overseas at the time.
"It's a really terrible case of mistaken identity," she said. "I just don't think that Craig Thomson should be punished over something that is quite likely false."
He also claimed, under parliamentary privilege, that HSU deputy general secretary Marco Bolano had once threatened to “set him up with escorts”.
Mr Thomson said he did hope parliamentarians would keep an open mind, saying there were some “very simple ways” in which his factional opponents could have manufactured false evidence to create the impression he had been with prostitutes.
"I was in a very dysfunctional union for a long time and in about 2004, amongst a whole range of other threats that were made to me, one was that they would ruin my potential political career ... by setting me up with hookers," Mr Thomson told the Nine Network this morning.
"The whole executive knew what my credit card numbers were," he added.
Your right, majority of them are, but, the media has shown Craig T to be Guilty, even your convinced. Dont you find something fishy about that? considering he hasnt even been tried yet and he's been threatened with being setup with hookers in the past?
Mr Thomson had a rare victory today when the NSW Police confirmed he had not been given the option of surrendering to them on a Victorian warrant last week. Instead, on Thursday he was dramatically arrested by five officers and taken to a watchhouse where he was strip searched.
After the arrest Detective Superintendent Col Dyson said Mr Thomson had been invited to surrender himself before Christmas but had declined.
In fact, he had been asked to come to Melbourne to be interviewed by police and had rejected that request.
Today Mr Dyson said in a statement, "The arrest warrant indicated that Mr Thomson was invited to Victoria to be interviewed.
"It additionally indicated that the arrest warrant was issued on the grounds that he was avoiding the service of the summons. I concede the word 'summons' and not 'arrest' should have been used when I referred to the wording on the warrant.''