Big ‘fat’ lie exposed as fresh details emerge about explosive Slater and Gordon email scandal

A convicted fraudster linked to the notorious all-staff email scandal that wreaked havoc at law firm Slater and Gordon has seemingly been caught out telling another big ‘fat’ lie.  

Former payroll manager Bridgett Maddox’s unusually spelt first name appears in the metadata of a spreadsheet which allegedly listed all staff salaries and was attached to the revealing email.

She has categorically denied being involved in the email’s creation or publication. 

The email critiqued key staff, allegedly detailing who was ‘disloyal’, ‘useless’, ‘a gossip’ and ‘lazy’, and called the firm a ‘textbook case of dysfunction’.

Ms Maddox has since been unmasked as a serial fraudster under her former name, Bridgett Jones, before changing her identity after a two-year prison stretch in 2019. 

She tried to rebrand herself as a weight-loss influencer and told Nine Network’s 9Honey website about her dramatic body transformation, two years after leaving jail.

The single mum said she put on 40kg over 10 months after ‘a series of unfortunate events’, including becoming housebound when she fell down stairs and hurt her back.

She omitted to mention she had also been ‘housebound’ by being stuck in ‘the big house’ – slang for jail – while serving her sentence for fraud offences. 

Former Slater and Gordon payroll manager Bridgett Maddox has spoken about ‘the series of unfortunate events’ that led to her gaining 40kg in 10months … but omitted certain key details

Ms Maddox’s distinctive tattoo can be seen in the slimmed down pics she provided for her bizarre weight-loss warrior article

‘I couldn’t exercise and I wasn’t being mindful,’ she told the website. 

‘I gained weight so quickly, about two kilos a week at that point.

‘Nobody told me I was getting big and your vision of yourself in the mirror doesn’t always catch up. Because I was injured I was stuck at home a lot and wearing tracksuit pants. 

‘I didn’t realise what I weighed and my family and friends said they were scared to tell me.’

She said she began to feel ’embarrassed’ and ‘invisible’ as she struggled to battle her obesity.    

‘By then I was feeling uncomfortable,’ she said. 

‘I’d been on painkillers for a number of months and once I came off them all I felt really uncomfortable. 

‘Also I wasn’t sleeping well. I was snoring. And walking to the tram stop, I was sweating, and I never used to sweat that much.

The single mother says she shifted the unwanted weight by adhering to a rigorous diet and exercise regimen

‘I was chafing between my thighs and I realised that I was wearing clothes out really quickly. 

‘I’d buy a new pair of work pants and after a few weeks they were worn down in between my legs until they were almost see through, or sometimes they’d split. 

‘I was embarrassed a lot of the time…When I met new people one of the first things I normally said was: “I’m not usually this big”.

‘And it was that I was invisible, I became invisible. I used to be slim and I was treated a certain way. 

‘There’s a certain way that tall, slim people are treated. I’d go to restaurants and people would come to me or I’d be shopping and be served. 

‘When I put on all the weight people didn’t notice me.

‘I’d be standing in line at the deli and would have to ask for attention. I just blended into the background and people weren’t thrilled to serve me.’

She said she was ultimately referred to an endocrinologist and told that she should not blame herself for her dramatic weight gain. 

‘The first thing he said was it wasn’t my fault,’ she told the website. 

Ms Maddox’s distinctive tattoo can also be seen in the profile pic of the now dormant The_BridgettJones profile on X – even though she claims she had never gone by that name

‘He explained it was genetics. Members of my family were overweight so it was in my genes. I could lose the weight but I’d have to stay on top of it.

‘I just don’t have the predisposition to eat a burger every day…but he said, “You can beat obesity, but with your genetics, it’s going to be a battle.”‘

She also talked at length about her tough, no-frills childhood and love of fashion. 

‘I have a family history of obesity. For me, I was very sporty from a young age. I played a lot of sport and was very active,’ she said. 

‘I also really loved fashion and clothes so I was mindful of what I ate and how I ate.

‘We didn’t have a lot of food, my mum was a single mum, and there were three kids in the family. 

‘We weren’t overweight as kids. We had three meals a day but they were pretty conservative meals. There were never seconds or dessert. 

‘We didn’t get money to go to the shops. “I hadn’t had a soft drink until I was a teenager and got my first job. I’d never had McDonald’s or fast food. 

‘Once a year for a birthday we’d have fish and chips as a treat. 

‘We ate a lot of cheap, easy to make foods and frozen vegetables, never fresh food.’

She said lost 4kg in a week after a doctor put her on a strict eating plan, and that she eventually shed the excess weight by following a combined diet and exercise regime. 

Ms Maddox had been working as Slater and Gordon’s payroll manager until she was suspended last November for improperly allocating a $200 gift and eventually left the business. 

Details in the rogue email sent to the firm’s 900-plus employees were only current as of last November, coincidentally at the same time Ms Maddox was stood down.

The email was sent from a private Gmail address set up falsely in the name of Slater and Gordon’s outgoing Chief People Officer Mari Ruiz-Matthyssen, and written in the guise of a personal ‘handover’ document to her replacement. 

Slater and Gordon have confirmed that Ms Ruiz-Matthyssen, and it is not suggested otherwise, had absolutely no involvement in the controversy whatsoever and had been framed by the email’s true author. 

The notorious email was designed to look like a ‘handover’ document by respected people and culture executive Mari Ruiz-Matthyssen – but she had absolutely nothing to do with it

It has since emerged that Ms Ruiz-Matthyssen was the executive tasked with formally suspending Ms Maddox. 

The respected HR manager is understood to be devastated by the vile attack on her reputation and has engaged leading Sydney counsel Monica Allen from top law firm BlackBay Lawyers.

Ms Ruiz-Matthyssen has now launched legal action against Slater and Gordon in the  Supreme Court of Victoria claiming negligence over their handling of the email row.

‘Our client has suffered significant and ongoing personal and professional harm,’ said the legal firm in a statement.

‘We are resolute in our commitment to ensuring Slater and Gordon are held accountable for their actions – and inactions.’ 

Meanwhile, Slater and Gordon gave Ms Maddox a payout of at least $60,000 after she engaged Maurice Blackburn to pursue legal action over her suspension.

The Australian Financial Review revealed Ms Maddox’s secret criminal past as Bridgett Jones after uncovering a slew of evidence that they were they same person – despite her strenuous denials to the contrary. 

They include a profile picture on a now dormant X account belonging to The_BridgettJones, which features her distinctive tattoo, the two identities’ matching birth dates and eyewitness accounts they are the same person by former colleagues. 

Jones’ criminal past stretched back to 2006 when she stole customer credit card details to use for her own financial gain while working in a Pizza Hut call centre, according to sentencing remarks delivered by County Court Judge Liz Gaynor.

Ms Maddox has categorically denied having any connection to the damaging email scandal

Slater and Gordon staff chief executive Dina Tutungi has been handling the email saga

The following year Jones was convicted of defrauding a law firm after she received an unfair dismissal payout for $400 from a former employer and altered the cheque to bank $4000. 

In 2014, Jones received a suspended sentence for misusing four American Express corporate credit cards – primarily to make purchases at fashion retailers – while employed as an administration assistant.

Jones was given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to 66 charges relating to unlawful use of company credit cards. 

The same year, she managed to land a job as a payroll assistant at Melbourne company Premium Floors in Dandenong South.

While there, she stole more than $240,000 from the firm to ‘keep up appearances’, Victorian County Court heard in June 2017, after admitting one count of theft and three of obtaining financial advantage by deception.

The court heard Jones had used a combination of false accounting, transfers onto her credit card, using two employees’ credit cards and making a fraudulent Motorpass card account between November 2015 and December 2016 

She rationalised her crimes by claiming to help those close to her, and used the stolen funds to send her son to a private boarding school and for her mother to buy a car. 

Jones also told a forensic psychologist she was under financial stress and wanted to ‘promote the image of success’. 

Ms Ruiz-Matthyssen has retained top counsel Monica Allen (pictured) from leading law firm BlackBay Lawyers as she contends with the damage caused by the scandal

In sentencing her to a year behind bars, Judge Gaynor said there was a high risk of repeat offending unless there was intense psychiatric intervention. 

‘How someone thinks it’s okay to knock off money to buy a car for your mum while on a suspended sentence for the same thing?’ she said. 

“That shows me how psychologically disturbed your thinking is. You must have known this would be uncovered.

‘Your outlook is skewed, fractured and wrong. 

‘You might have seen the world as a tough place to negotiate. It doesn’t make you more needing or vulnerable than anyone else.’

Judge Gaynor noted Jones’s dysfunctional upbringing in Shepparton, sometimes-abusive relationships and history of pharmaceutical drugs abuse.

The judge stressed the ‘nightmarish’ pressure Jones placed on her immediate manager at Premium Floors, whose career and well-being suffered ‘gravely’ as a result of the offending. 

‘The unfairness must rankle with him all the time,’ Judge Gaynor said. 

‘How dare you do that to another human being, Ms Jones.’

The fraudster was back before the same judge the following October for further offences she committed after being sacked by Premium Floors and picking up a job as a payroll and accounts manager at labour hire out Ultro Construction and Recruitment.

The revelations about Ms Maddox’s criminal past come as Slater and Gordon top executives struggle with the fallout from the email scandal 

The court heard she fleeced the company out of almost $100,000 via a series of transactions between February and November 2016.

On top of that, she also used forged payslips – fraudulently increasing her annual salary from $65,000 to $162,000 – to obtain a $900,000 loan from Westpac bank to buy a Cheltenham house worth almost $1million.

Judge Gaynor sentenced her to a further year in prison, with Jones to remain locked up until December 2019, when she would begin a three-year community corrections order. 

The revelations about Ms Maddox’s criminal past come as Slater and Gordon top executives struggle with the fallout from the email scandal. 

Slater and Gordon has said the matter ‘has been referred to police and is being investigated’ and that they won’t ‘comment on individual employees or former employees’.

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