Neelam Choudary

Both TV stations have revealed (as did Whale Oil earlier in the day) that Neelam Choudary is Complainant A. She stood for Labour’s nomination for Botany in the 2008 election – so this was someone who wanted to be an MP – not a shy retiring unworldy type.

I will blog more on this tomorrow. But it is a matter of public record that Neelam’s husband has was convicted in December 2008:

Kumar Akkineni Choudary and Lourdu Joseph William Reddy, who both moved to New Zealand from India in the 1990s, tricked more than 20 Indian and Chinese immigrants, either already in the country or overseas, into paying thousands of dollars. …

An Indian national now living in the Auckland suburb of Avondale told the Herald he met Choudary and his wife Neelam in 2002 after hearing about the scheme from a friend back in India who read an advertisement in a newspaper.

The highly qualified 32-year-old was asked to pay $3500 in return for a job offer.

“They said that if you paid a bit of extra money, they could get the case sped up. They said that they had some contacts with the immigration office people.”

About five days after their fist meeting, the Choudarys sent the man a job offer working on computers for a company called Xzact.

The Herald article does not state that Neelam was charged with anything, but the wording refers to the Choudarys plural as making the job offers.

Choudary was found guilty on six fraud charges.

I repeat my earlier call that all the texts – in both directions – should be made available. Public damaging allegations have been made that could force an MP out of Parliament, and I think we need to see what the replies were to understand why the alleged harrassment went on for so long.