{"id":701984,"date":"2026-05-29T10:38:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T10:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/701984\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T10:38:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T10:38:14","slug":"alleged-relationship-with-high-profile-married-man-raised-in-cairns-extortion-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/701984\/","title":{"rendered":"Alleged relationship with high-profile married man raised in Cairns extortion case"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man has appeared in a Cairns court accused of trying to extort a woman over what he alleged was a relationship with a high-profile Queensland public figure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The man, who cannot be identified, is facing an extortion with domestic violence charge and is currently on bail.<\/p>\n

Cairns magistrate Gelma Meoli issued a non-publication order preventing the identification of all parties involved.<\/p>\n

Defence barrister Brydie Bilic told the court the authenticity of the evidence of the relationship was not challenged.<\/p>\n

Ms Bilic said her client’s original bail terms, made before today’s hearing, were “overarching”.<\/p>\n

“There are concerns that it is designed to protect,” she told the court.<\/p>\n

“There are some matters that go so far as to potentially constitute a gag order.”<\/p>\n

\"lawyer<\/p>\n

Brydie Bilic says the man’s original bail terms were “overarching”. (ABC News: Conor Byrne)<\/p>\n

Ms Bilic requested the non-publication order not include the high-profile person.<\/p>\n

“[The woman and the high-profile man] don’t live together or reside in the same area,” she told the court.<\/p>\n

“There’s no evidence of readily available information that would link the two together.”<\/p>\n

Ms Bilic told the court the high-profile man was not a witness.<\/p>\n

“His name arises in the factual context of the allegations, but that doesn’t make him a party to the proceedings,” she said.<\/p>\n

Magistrate Meoli ordered the names of the complainant, defendant and the high-profile person all be suppressed.<\/p>\n

A directions hearing on the case was adjourned to a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has appeared in a Cairns court accused of trying to extort a woman over what he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[341863,64,63,341861,3403,127668,31801,341862,134070,90243,142285,105],"class_list":["post-701984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-341863","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cairns-magistrate-court","tag-defence","tag-extortion","tag-far-north-queensland","tag-gelma-meoli","tag-gimuy","tag-marlin-coast","tag-prosecution","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}