Weirdler is doing his best to keep this story alive. Not going to bother linking the article.
‘I have never taken money from charity’: Tim Simona's former partner speaks out
Danny Weidler
Tim Simona had five pages and an accompanying video to tell his story. You know the one: where he bet on other teams, rorted charities, took cocaine, fed pokies and forced a woman to have an abortion.
But when his former partner, Jaya Taki, told her side of the story last week he decided to send me a tweet: "Are you done yet champ?"
I was hoping we were.
But I noticed Simona decided to like a few tweets in the hours after that one that caught my eye. Some he lauded were critical of me – that's par for the course. But it was a bit rich favouriting a comment relating to Taki's foundation, which she started after her brother died from cancer.
The comment read, in part: "Has anyone thought about reporting her to the police for charities fraud?" And Simona wants us to forgive him? Remember he pretended to be raising money for kids' cancer charity, Camp Quality.
Taki wants to set the record straight in relation to her foundation.
"If there was one story that has severely damaged my reputation, it's the story about me 'scamming my own charity'," she said. "I've sat back for over a week and discussed with my family whether or not it's worth discussing it publicly and, of course, it absolutely is. When the NRL sat with me, they took my entire Whatsapp conversation. I was unaware they were going to take everything. Unfortunately, much of our heat-of-the-moment fights, jokes and banter have become headline news and taken wildly out of context, including this 'scam'."
When it came to her charity, Taki says she and Simona sold three jerseys and raised $1700 in total. Two of those payments were deposited into the foundation bank account and the other was $500 in cash. Because NRL players do not get free jerseys, just a discount, they were required to pay $130 for each jumper, a total cost of $390. That leaves a $1310 profit.
"Tim asked to be paid and asked for half," Taki said. "I have not used a single cent of any money raised for myself. Here is the mistake I've made and one I must own up to. If you actually know me, you would know I'm a people pleaser and although I'm incredibly strong-willed and confrontational, I struggled to be forthright with Tim in the first few months of our relationship. I didn't want to come across difficult, so when he said he wanted half of the proceeds, I went along with it, something I have never, ever done before. I'm so angry with myself and I apologise."
Taki says her decision to allow Simona to profit from her charity was based on her insecurity.
"I was always insecure about his feelings towards me, but one consistency was his interest in me when it came to raising that money and placing bets. I didn't know he had a gambling problem, so it didn't raise alarm bells. I did it for his attention. I can't tell you how embarrassed I feel to admit that I helped him gamble and raise money just so he didn't lose interest in me. He received his half and I donated the rest to my foundation.
"In regards to his other deceptions, West Tigers fans were the ones that alerted the media to the Camp Quality scamming, not me. I had no idea about any of it."
The text messages of the pair talking about "splitting" the proceeds of charity appear damning on the surface. "We also go on to to joke about selling personal videos of ourselves to raise funds," she said. "Whilst some may not understand our humour, we joked around a lot."
Taki's foundation runs a program called "Healthy Inside Out". It teaches the importance of healthy lifestyles in the prevention of disease.
"In December 2015 I organised a walkathon for a friend of mine who had cancer and we raised $50,000 for him," she said. "Anyone with cancer does not pay to be treated by me [she's a colon therapist]. My foundation has positively affected thousands of lives, especially young lives. It's in honour of my brother who passed away, and instead of feeling sorry myself, I've created something positive out of my loss."
Why didn't Tigers ask hard questions?
Here is an interesting spin-off from the Tim Simona story. Before that broke, Kyle Lovett was waiting to front the board over a well-documented drugs issue. Given that the club was well over the salary cap, the pressure was on to sack Lovett to make the Tigers cap compliant.
Fortunately for Lovett, the Simona issue solved the club's cap problems. Lovett fronted the board and with the pressure off, they went easy on Lovett.
More importantly, Lovett was not interrogated about the night out where he was charged with cocaine possession, to which he subsequently plead guilty.
This column understands the board may have got some answers they didn't want to hear about what goes on at the club, much in line with Simona's revelations about drug use.
Interestingly, neither the club nor the NRL have had any desire to investigate Simona's allegations.
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So she's trying to tell everyone that at first the charity scams were legit but then Simona demanded half the money which she had to give him because she's just a "people pleaser." Oh, and all the coaching she did, helping Simona come up with a better scam, that was just her joking around - you probably just don't get her sense of humor.
For anyone interested in reading the actual text messages ->
https://i.imgur.com/XnvhgxF.jpg
