Taylor Auerbach was offered a pay rise and a promotion from Channel Seven after the TV producer admitted to putting $10,000 on a corporate credit card to pay for Thai massages for Bruce Lehrmann, the federal court has heard.
The former Spotlight producer said he was mortified when he woke up the next day and realised he had charged the company for the services at his Elizabeth Bay apartment and he sent his resignation by email in November 2022.
The sensational evidence came on the first day of the re-opening of the defamation trial after Network Ten won the right to present fresh evidence.
The fresh evidence, in the form of affidavits from Auerbach alleging Lehrmann gave Seven confidential documents from his criminal trial, has delayed the judgment Justice Michael Lee was scheduled to hand down on Thursday.
If proven, the evidence could go both to Lehrmann’s credibility and raise questions as to whether he abused the court process, which may affect the quantum of any damages he is awarded should his claim be successful.
Lee, possibly as early as next week, will rule on whether Lehrmann, a former Liberal staffer, was defamed by Lisa Wilkinson and Ten when The Project broadcast an interview with Brittany Higgins in 2021 in which she alleged she had been raped in Parliament House.
On Thursday afternoon the court heard Auerbach did not end up resigning but stayed with the program where he was offered more money and a promotion.
He agreed that in the resignation letter he apologised for spending the money on the corporate credit card which had “nothing to do with work” but he now insists that the evening was to do with work.
Auerbach told the court that on a different occasion Lehrmann issued invoices to Seven to reimburse him for money he spent on illegal drugs and sex workers.
Under cross-examination Auerbach said that Lehrmann had a bag of cocaine and sex workers at the Meriton hotel in the city but the two men devised a plan to issue an invoice for “per diems” or “reasonable expenses while on work trips” which Auerbach claimed Seven agreed to pay.
“I recall seeing the invoice,” Auerbach said.
Lehrmann’s barrister, Matthew Richardson SC, suggested that there were “no per diems paid” and “it didn’t happen”.
“It did,” Auerbach said.
Auerbach said his former boss, executive producer Mark Llewellyn, “gave verbal approval” for the invoices to be paid.
“Mr Lehrmann had, over dinner, purchased a bag of cocaine while we were dining at Franca, and when we got upstairs to the room, he pulled that out and started to put it on a plate and then started talking to me about a prospective Spotlight story and his desire to order prostitutes to the Meriton that night and began Googling of series of websites to try and make that happen,” Auerbach said.
The incidents are alleged to have happened when Auerbach was assigned as a “babysitter” or “minder” for Lehrmann who the network was trying to get across the line for an exclusive interview.
On one of the nights of heavy drinking Auerbach told the court that Lehrmann agreed to do an interview but insisted he would not discuss the night of the alleged rape.
“I was taken aback,” Auerbach said. “It jumped out at me as quite concerning.”
Auerbach denied a suggestion by Richardson that he had a drinking problem at the time he was courting Lehrmann for the interview.
Richardson put it to him that he had been consuming “140 standard drinks a week or 30 standard drinks a day at the time”.
“I want to suggest to you Mr Auerbach that your recollection of anything that happened in November or December 2022 is suspect.”
Auerbach: “I disagree.”
Auerbach did agree he had been “in part” backgrounding journalists about his time at Seven and that he “hated” his former colleague Steve Jackson. Jackson’s appointment as a media adviser to the NSW Police was cancelled after the stories appeared last month.
Richardson: “I want to suggest you are willing to say anything, no matter how false, to damage people that are employed by Channel Seven or connected with Channel Seven?”
Auerbach denied this.
“For instance, you particularly hate Steve Jackson, your colleague from Seven who worked on the Lehrmann story, don’t you?”
Auerbach: “Yes.”
He confirmed he was upset that his name was not on Spotlight’s Walkley award entry for the Lehrmann story and that he had complained to Seven and to the Walkleys about being left out.
However, Auerbach insisted he was not proud of the Lehrmann story.
He was also cross-examined about sending naked photographs of a woman to journalists in recent weeks.
He admitted to sending the photos, disagreed that the woman was “vulnerable”, and said he did not know it was a criminal act to send photographs of that nature without her consent.
Lehrmann’s legal team played the court a video Auerbach had posted on social media in which he destroyed Jackson’s golf clubs.
Lee interjected: “The shorter the iron, the more difficult it is.”
Auerbach said the video was a parody.
Auerbach’s solicitor Rebekah Giles told the court her client had left Seven after sustaining a psychiatric injury at the hands of Llewellyn and Jackson.
