Cassie Sainsbury’s family ‘feud over media spoils’ from cocaine case

She hasn’t yet appeared in court but Cassie Sainsbury’s family is reportedly already feuding over the spoils from her drug charges.

News Corp Australia obtained an exclusive telephone interview with the accused drug mule from the Colombian jail where’s being held on charges of attempting to smuggle almost 6 kilograms of cocaine out of the country.

In the interview, the Adelaide 22-year-old told News Corp that she was unaware until their interview that her mother and sister had apparently signed a contract with Channel 9’s 60 Minutes for her story. Her mother, Linda Evans, and sister, Khala Sainsbury, landed in the Colombian capital Bogota yesterday with a film crew in tow.

“They’re just going out and doing it on their own. That’s my problem,” Cassie Sainsbury told News Corp. “It’s my story. They need to get permission from me to sell my story.”

She added that she was worried that the media attention would make her case worse. 

“Once I’ve been sentenced sure I’m happy to talk about what happened because my case isn’t in jeopardy then,” she said.

There were reports that the Sainsbury family had asked for as much as $1 million for the rights to cover Sainbury’s ordeal, which started when she was stopped at the city’s international airport on April 12 with what she claimed were boxes of headphones that she’d bought from a Colombian man called Angelo to give as gifts from her upcoming wedding. She had allegedly used Angelo as an interpreter during her time in the country.

Colombian police were reportedly acting on a tip-off from the US Drug Enforcement Agency, which had become suspicious about her plane ticket, which The Australian reported was bought at the last minute by an unnamed party in Hong Kong for a trip Australia to Bogota via London. But reports in Colombia said that police were aware of her presence in the country shortly after she arrived and had been seeking her since then.

Sainsbury’s family have given differing reasons for her globe-trotting – she reportedly visited five countries in the six months before her arrest – with her family saying that she was promoting her personal training business and her fiance Scott Broadbridge saying that she was making international contacts for a cleaning firm she was working for.

Broadbridge, meanwhile, has signed a rival coverage deal with Channel 7’s Sunday Night to talk about the case, but Sainsbury told News Corp that she’d okayed this arrangement. Broadbridge also arrived in Bogota with a media crew.

In the News Corp interview, Sainsbury also complained about the food on offer in the Bogota prison, saying that she didn’t eat red which, which was mostly what was on offer, and that she hadn’t received medical attention for what she said was numbness in her arms.

What do you think about ‘pay-for-access’ media deals like this?