The Sun-Herald Melbourne, Sunday, February 20, 2005 The terrible toll on my family: Adler By Annette Sharp and Alex Mitchell Adler leaving court this week. Photo: Simon O'Dwyer RODNEY Adler has spoken for the first time about the impact the investigation into the HIH collapse has had on his family. Adler, who will be sentenced next month after pleading guilty to four criminal charges in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, said his wife and children had been under tremendous strain as a consequence of the regulator's four-year investigation into the insurer's multibillion-dollar collapse. "The events of the past four years have taken a tremendous toll on my family and I believe that the reality of this will only sink in after my sentencing hearing," Adler told The Sun-Herald. None of Adler's family - his wife of 17 years Lyndi and their children Jason, 16, Romi, 14, Natalie, 10, and Charlotte, 7 - were [sic. was] in court to hear his guilty plea. But the former high-flying businessman denied the couple's marriage has been tested or weakened by the ordeal, saying that they have been brought closer by recent events. "Lyndi has been unbelievable," he said. "She did not sign up for this job. We've been married nearly 18 years and it's as good as it's ever been." David Irving comments: NOW is this a bit of sympathetic writing or what? And that photo up there, doesn't it makeya just want to hug and comfort the poor guy?    You can pick through the hair of the two journalists whose bye-line is on this piece, and you won't find a single flea or louse on them, that I will wager. The same will probably go for their bank-accounts -- at present: but future rewards will no doubt pile up in journalists' heaven. They know which side their bread is buttered on, Down Under.    Just to remind our readers, here is one of those Nice Folks Next Door who ran a bogus insurance operation for years, bilked thousands of Diggers out of their life savings, fought a four year court battle at Australian taxpayer expense to avoid jail, then finally admitted that, yes, he had been guilty as charged all along.    Now this Adler is worried about going to jail -- where he may be obliged to play the mouth-organ a bit (and not quite as well as his namesake Larry Adler); and he is worried about his poor wife and kids. Bit late for that, methinks.    Yes, they have some People of Character in Australia, when we come to think of it. We wonder where all those millions went; and where the Adlers will go too, when the time comes -- to which safehaven country, we mean. Although Adler would not be drawn on his reasons for pleading guilty after such a long and bitter battle to clear his name, it is widely believed his decision to strike a deal was motivated by a desire to spare his family any further heartache. Adler pleaded guilty to two charges relating to the dissemination of false information to the sharemarket and two charges of failing to disclose "adverse information" about a sideline business. He faces up to 20 years jail when his sentencing hearing begins on March 29. The guilty plea followed an agreement being reached with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions which saw three other charges relating to market manipulation dropped. The deal is expected to see his jail term reduced to a lesser term, if he is jailed by the court. This will enable him to return to his "shattered" family sooner. "I am expecting that the judge takes into consideration not just this very short period of my life, but my life in total," he said. Adler said he had not yet decided if any of his family would attend his sentencing hearing to appeal on his behalf. "Ultimately it will be a family decision if they accompany me and I'll take advice from my legal team," he said. Family sources said on Friday that Adler did not want his children to see him "embarrassed and demeaned" in court. A friend said the Adler family was desperate to move on: "Rod wants to put that period of his life behind him. He doesn't want it to go on for a decade. It has already been four and a half years of hell." Since her husband's humiliating and public fall from grace in 2001, Mrs Adler has withdrawn from the public eye. In 2002 she resigned her position as founding chairman of the Sydney Children's Hospital's fund-raising Gold Dinner, the biggest fund-raising event on the Sydney social calendar, and has not been to a society event since. Mrs Adler spent last Monday and Tuesday at Adler's side as he consulted legal teams from Gilbert & Tobin and Swaab & Associates and his barrister Elizabeth Fullerton - honorary members of the family for more than half of young Charlotte Adler's life. This followed a weekend in which the family sought comfort in routine activities. They had brunch at fashionable Bondi restaurant Hugo's last Saturday morning, but photos of the gathering depict a rather grim picture of a family looking worn by the battle to clear Adler's name. If jailed, Adler will be classified a minimum-security prisoner and is likely to serve his sentence at the John Morony correctional centre at Windsor, 60 kilometres from Sydney's central business district. He will enter the prison system at Silverwater jail next door to Sydney Olympic Park where a committee will interview him before giving him a security classification. The Morony centre, which houses 550 inmates, is considered his most likely destination because it is a low-risk facility where Macquarie Bank high flyer Simon Hannes served his sentence for insider trading. Rodney Adler Four Guilty pleas. Company collapsed with debts of $5.3 billion, wiping out life savings of thousands of Australians Adler will spend 12 hours a day outside his cell and the other 12 hours locked up. His European suits will be a thing of the past, replaced by the standard bottle-green trackies and shirt. Footwear is basic trainers or flip-flops. A senior officer said Adler could ask for special protection but that would involve sending him to Junee, the only privately owned jail in the NSW system.   Our dossier on Mr Irving's exclusion from Australia by Philip Ruddock, on the grounds of "character."   The Global Vendetta against David Irving Australia's twelve-year battle to keep David Irving from returning to speak to ordinary Australians | Ruddock's letter to David Irving (one of many) Apology still required from Israel  New Zealand Freedom in sight for jailed Israeli spies | "Alleged" Mossad agents to be released early | Jewish spies leave NZ after serving half their prison term; but their $100,000 donation to Cerebral Palsy Society (ordered by court) has not yet been paid | Yet another fake-passport factory found in NZ: who is behind it? NZ Herald: NZ Foreign Minister Phil Goff likely to face Israel at UN debate | Israel - a stormy relationship: Passport to a world of trouble (Part 1) (Part 2) (Part 3: How Israeli security tries to win friends and influence people ) (David Irving and NZ items: on p.2) New Zealand judges allow businessman accused of a 3-year campaign of racial hatred against Muslims to keep his name secret: "Detective Inspector Harry Quinn today said the man [was] of European ethnicity... but he refused to say if he followed any particular religion. " [second story] »»» In from the cold: Mossad spy Eli Cara (jailed for passport fraud in New Zealand) becomes top Israeli credit-card (Visa) executive Archives show Israeli spy's passport sparked 1974 secret British row: The use of forged British passports by Mossad assassination squads Nice folks Israeli air traveler who "forgot" the secret plastic gun carried in his hand luggage "The largely plastic pistol failed to show up on X-ray scanners at Ben Gurion Airport. The court heard that Lehman, who holds dual British and Israeli nationality . . . had been on his way to a niece's wedding in America" (and a funeral?) Fake New Zealand passports sequel Australia secretly expels Israeli diplomat -- neither country will say why

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