Sir James Wallace unmasked: The inside story of a rich-lister, arts philanthropist and criminal

Sir James Wallace, one of New Zealand’s leading arts and film philanthropists, was today identified as the former rich lister convicted of indecently assaulting three men and attempting to pervert the course of justice. Sam
Hurley has been investigating and reporting on Wallace’s court case since 2018.

Wandering about the corridors of Auckland’s historic High Court, an elderly grey man in a grey suit, a bright pink shirt and a red tie admires the artwork which adorns the walls.

His somewhat frail figure gives no indication of the money and influence he holds. But it is also this power that he wielded against his victims.

That man is Sir James Wallace, who for more than five years was described in news stories as the “prominent businessman” accused and eventually convicted of indecently assaulting three men and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Today at 2pm, the 85-year-old’s name suppression order, which has been constantly opposed by the Herald and Stuff, lapsed.

Wallace lives a life befitting of one of New Zealand’s rich listers in his four-storey Epsom mansion called Rannoch, a home filled with art and surrounded by lush gardens.

Always dressed fashionably and somewhat theatrically, Wallace displays his flair with his attire – which has included a flamboyant map print jacket.

NBR’s 2020 rich list estimated Wallace has a net worth of $170 million.

His fortune, however, did not come through art but was made from a variety of business interests, most notably a meat processing plant in Waitoa.

Wallace established the Wallace Corporation in 1996 and combined both his own and family businesses. The Wallace Corporation merged with the Spence Family’s Farm Brand Ltd in 2017 and became the Wallace Group Ltd Partnership.

The group creates animal skins, hides, and protein meals and distributes to several countries including the US and China.

Wallace’s wealth then saw him move into the world of arts philanthropy, where he became one of New Zealand’s biggest donors and resulted in him being knighted for services to the arts in 2011 – a knighthood the Government has already begun moves to take back.

He is perhaps best known for the Wallace Art Awards, the richest annual art awards in the country which gives hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes.

During its 29-year history, the awards have granted more than 100 prizes valued and enabled more than 60 overseas residencies for Kiwi artists.

The Wallace Arts Trust – now named The Arts House Trust – and its vast collection of art, housed in the Pah Homestead in Auckland’s Monte Cecilia Park since 2010 and now owned by the Auckland Council, is also open to the public.

Several months after he was first charged in February 2017, Wallace gave an interview to Viva magazine and spoke of his love for the art world.

“Without art and culture, you are a vegetable,” he said.

Wallace, who had an office on the upper floor of the homestead, has amassed thousands of artworks and has been responsible for one of the largest arts patronage programmes in the country.

“We spend around $2 million a year on the arts,” he told Viva.

Wallace’s entry into the art world began when he was a student at Auckland’s exclusive King’s College. He won a scholarship to study in Boston for the last year of school and visited New York’s famous galleries and museums and was taken by opera.

Wallace said he lacked the talent to become a painter so began collecting art.

He later became a founding patron of New Zealand Opera, the Auckland Theatre Company and the Royal NZ Ballet. Wallace is also a founding patron of the ASB Waterfront Theatre, home of the Auckland Theatre Company.

As his reputation as an arts benefactor blossomed, he became involved in New Zealand’s film industry and has backed several of this country’s most celebrated films, including Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople and more recently Baby Done where he served as one of the executive producers alongside the Oscar winner.

At the launch party for Baby Done in 2020, however, Wallace cut a lonely figure. He was pictured standing alone in the crowd, wearing a jacket and tie and seemingly surrounded by an invisible barrier keeping other patrons from him.

The allegations against him, as many art insiders have told the Herald, had become Auckland’s worst-kept secret.

‘It is a completely vicious blackmailing effort’ – Wallace denies allegations

“It’s not going to come to anything,” Wallace adamantly told Herald senior reporter Anna Leask during a telephone call in February 2017, shortly after he’d been charged by police.

“There is absolutely no substance to it, it is a completely vicious blackmailing effort which is not going to succeed.”

The charges were “incredibly unfair,” Wallace maintained. “It’s horrible to have this … truthless accusation hanging over my head.

“This could affect my personal reputation and my ability to help the organisations I am involved in.”

He called it a “pack of lies.”

The next day, the Weekend Herald broke the story on its front page – a prominent New Zealander had been criminally charged. Wallace’s denials continued in the courtroom. He pleaded not guilty to an initial charge of indecent assault, against a young man in the arts and theatre community at Rannoch in October 2016.

A trial was scheduled for September 25, 2017 and Wallace continued to live his life as though nothing had happened. He gave interviews to arts and culture writers, attended high-profile events, and had dinners with some of New Zealand’s most influential people.

Prime Ministers and celebrities have dined with him. After all, he was one of, if not the biggest, benefactors in the New Zealand arts scene.

But Wallace’s trial would never begin.

“Substantial amount of fresh disclosure provided to defence late last week,” the trial judge wrote in his notes when postponing the trial.

In the weeks or days prior to what would have been the trial, Wallace’s lawyer David Jones KC disclosed three statements to the Crown on a “counsel to counsel” basis. They were statements of intended defence evidence.

They alleged the complainant was making it up, and he had acknowledged to others he had lied and was making a false claim to extort money from Wallace.

However, Wallace and Jones were seemingly unaware of what police were being told – that people associated with Wallace were offering inducements to withdraw the claims, allegedly on the wealthy businessman’s instructions.

Neither police nor the Crown has any obligation to disclose such information where there are grounds to believe a person is constructing a false defence, which would be an attempt to pervert the course of justice.

After the trial was adjourned, a new date was set for May 2018.

But in April 2018 more charges were laid – including an allegation by another young man of indecent assault in 2008.

Wallace was also charged alongside his business manager, who continues to fight for suppression, and the entertainer Mika X with attempting to dissuade the 2016 complainant, who was by now living in Queensland, from giving evidence with a series of bribes.

The bribes included a $15,000 cheque and the prospect of future work opportunities.

It would later be described in court as the “Gold Coast plot”, after Mika X, the manager and two others – posing as New York talent agents – travelled to Australia in May 2017 to meet the victim at a five-star Palazzo Versace hotel.

The others were the politically-connected Hamish Jevan Goulter and his friend and business associate Allison Edmonds. They were revealed in 2021 as the two immunity witnesses who struck a deal with the Solicitor-General and testified against Wallace.

The Gold Coast group took the complainant shopping. He was wined and dined. Then they asked him to drop his claims against Wallace.

Mika X would also be charged with threatening the young man with a lawsuit and arranging for him to be out of New Zealand at the time of the trial. Those charges were later dropped by the Crown after Mika X pleaded guilty on the eve of the High Court trial in 2021.

The entertainer and actor would, however, later plead guilty to a charge of meeting with the victim at an Auckland cafe in April 2017 and offering him a bribe to drop the case.

Because of the new charges, which the Crown wanted all heard together, Judge Russell Collins adjourned the May 2018 trial. During the next few months, several hearings were scheduled and adjourned and the delays became constant, including hearings to consider Wallace’s continued name suppression.

Ultimately, the District Court and Court of Appeal both ruled the charges should be heard together and a trial date was set in March 2019.

First trial begins and judge rules Wallace and his conspirators should be named

Wallace’s initial trial began with the Herald and Stuff again challenging his lengthy name suppression order.

Judge Collins agreed with the media firms and revoked the orders for the three accused, Wallace, his manager and Mika X. In what became a theme of the case, Jones quickly appealed the decision, meaning suppression continued.

But the jury knew who he was, and Crown prosecutor Simon Foote KC made sure to tell them just how much influence Wallace had in the arts community.

“This case is about a rich and influential businessman,” he said. “Who has used his powerful position to take advantage of others in a criminal way.”

Foote said the efforts to encourage one of the complainants to drop their allegations were “essentially attempting to silence” him.

“Mika X said he was the man to fix the situation,” Foote explained.

However, the complainant was wise to Mika’s initial corrupt effort at an Auckland cafe. He recorded the conversation on his phone and photographed the $15,000 cheque – later giving both to the police.

“You’d be surprised what money can do to buy people, you know what I mean?” Mika X was recorded saying. “People can get nasty … He has enough money to buy people to survive.”

Foote said there was no doubt who was behind the attempts to pay off the complaint – Wallace.

But Wallace claimed had no knowledge of the approach.

The second attempt, the Gold Coast plot, in May 2017 was far more elaborate and involved committing tens of thousands of dollars to the scheme, Foote said.

Goulter – known for his work in political circles and connections to some of New Zealand’s wealthiest individuals – was hired for the job.

The long-time friend of Destiny Church co-founders Brian and Hannah Tamaki operates a public relations firm, Goulter & Associates, which claims on its website to provide “PR and strategic communications counsel” and be associated with several high-profile people.

It was these connections and one purported link in particular, with former National Party president Michelle Boag, which Wallace would later tell a jury attracted him to using Goulter & Associates.

At the meeting on the Gold Coast, the victim was again sceptical and again secretly recorded the conversations. Jones would try to convince the jury that Wallace had engaged Goulter for reputational management after he was led to believe the complainant was “trying to sell his lies to the media”.

“He did things properly, he did things correctly, he did things through his lawyer and that is how he does things,” Jones said of Wallace. “If anyone did anything dodgy he didn’t know about it, he wasn’t part of it.

“To be guilty of anything, you need to have a guilty mind,” Jones said.

But Wallace’s claims of innocence would begin to collapse quickly with the emergence of a secret recording from a gay bar on Auckland’s Karangahape Rd.

Nightmare evenings at Rannoch

The story began in October 2016, when a young man was taken to hospital.

There he told two doctors about being sexually assaulted. The perpetrator, he explained, lived in a grand mansion.

The young man would later explain in court that he had been introduced to Wallace by Mika X and was staying at Rannoch at the time.

However, one day after eating what he believed was some uncooked meat he fell ill and “started feeling nauseous”.

“I began vomiting,” he said. “Once I was in bed … the door opened.”

It was Wallace – standing there like a ghost haunting his castle.

“He was wearing nothing,” the young man recalled. “I said I was trying to have a sleep – ‘I’m in a lot of pain’.”

Wallace told him to move to another room.

“I respected his wishes and then he said, ‘come into my room’ and then said, ‘come into my bed’.

“He then came onto the side of the bed where he was in between the wall and myself. He began spooning me,” he said. “By that time my stomach was quite sore … I told him I didn’t want him here. He told me, ‘everything was going to be okay’. He started putting his hands down my pants…”

The young man said he tried to reach his phone and call a friend – who was also staying at the home – for help.

“For a moment I thought that I should just lie there and just let him do it to me – that it would be over soon – but I just couldn’t, so I just kept trying to call [my friend], I tried to call him so he would hear.

“After [my friend] wasn’t coming, I remember lying there for a bit grabbing my stomach trying to gather as much strength as I could, trying to gather myself. It was a few minutes, Wallace was playing with my penis.”

The young man told the court he then shoved Wallace with his elbow and punched him.

“Don’t punch, let me embrace you, let me hold you,” Wallace told the young man, fleeing the room.

The young man said; “I ran to [my friend’s] room and started banging on his door for help.”

He then recalled sitting on the floor, curled into a ball. After the young man’s friend talked to Wallace for a few moments, they went to the hospital.

Wallace, the young man would explain, had earlier given him a “reason to be afraid”.

“The first few days I was staying at Rannoch he brought me up to a room that was an extension of his bedroom,” he said. “He pulled my pants down and was just staring. I pulled them back up and left.”

On another occasion, Wallace discussed the prospect of the young man doing “nude photographs in an artistic way”.

“I wasn’t open to the suggestion as I didn’t feel comfortable, so he suggested to have a look at my body to see if it would be a good fit,” the victim said.

When later interviewed by police, Wallace vehemently denied the allegations and claimed he was helping the young man.

As police began to investigate, further allegations and more victims emerged.

Another man recalled feeling “dizzy” at Rannoch in February 2008. He said he first contacted Wallace to ask for financial support for a project, which the wealthy businessman seemed agreeable to and wanted to meet the young man.

“I was thrilled to receive that phone call,” the young man explained. “He was interested enough to potentially be supporting my [project].”

When the young man arrived at Rannoch he was in awe of its grandeur -the mature trees enveloping its grounds and the narrow street outside.

“It’s quite extraordinary, It’s an amazing place,” he said.

“[Wallace] offered me a drink, a gin and tonic, which I accepted … We talked about my project. We probably spoke for about 15, maybe 20 minutes about it.”

Another gin and tonic followed.

“We continued to talk about my work, but he wasn’t really asking questions which I would consider normal.”

Wallace said: “Why should I support you?”

The victim replied: “It had the effect of making me feel that I really had to work hard to earn his support, I had to play my cards right.” The young man added the tone of the questions were somewhat strange.

Stay for dinner, Wallace insisted.

But it was more of a command, the young man explained, like it had already been arranged.

“If I had to have dinner to get this sponsorship, then I’ll do that,” the victim told the court.

Dinner, however, was even stranger.

“The food was quite awful. Wallace was actually very embarrassed about the food. He said [so] several times. He was explaining that the chef had just left.”

During dinner, the young man said he had a glass, maybe a glass-and-a-half, of red wine before the tour of Rannoch began.

“Wallace took me through various rooms in the house, [it] started downstairs … I remember a room which is quite long.

“We went room by room, eventually heading upstairs.”

But something was wrong.

“At this point I began to feel not particularly well, I began to feel dizzy and not to have as much control over my limbs as I normally would,” the victim said. “I realised physically something wasn’t right.”

Wallace then pointed towards a room. “This is the room where you will stay,” Wallace said.

The young man said it made no sense and he became aware he needed to leave as Wallace began leading him into the bedroom. His physical condition then began to deteriorate further and he grew concerned about his safety.

“He came up behind me and put his hand on my ass and squeezed it and said, ‘god, you’ve got such a sweet ass’, and kissed the back of my neck and said, ‘why does there have to be a [partner]?’.

“I was so shocked that I just stopped and stood very still.”

The young man said at the time he was somewhat naive.

“I think I tried to deal with it by kinda laughing it off, by trying to be polite, but still wanting to leave,” he said. “He just sort of lagged behind and I was just looking for a phone … to call a taxi to leave.

“I was feeling so inebriated and dizzy and not in control of my body and he wasn’t helping me. I had said, ‘I need to go, I need to call a taxi’ and he wasn’t leading me to a phone.”

But, the young man explained, there were later “gaps” in his memory.

“I don’t even remember how I got out of the house,” he said. “My next memory is being in a taxi, feeling awful and then getting home.”

Shortly after arriving home, he began vomiting before telling his partner of the evening at Rannoch.

His partner said he was immediately quite concerned.

“I hadn’t seen him like that before,” the man’s partner told the court.

It was nearly a decade later, in late 2017, when the victim came forward to the police, after learning someone else had made a sexual complaint against Wallace.

“It was something that I’d wanted to do, something I’d be talking about doing for many years,” he said. “I have to support that [other victim],” he recalled thinking.

“And to finally put it on record what happened to me.”

During Wallace’s first trial in the Auckland District Court, he was often seen scoffing and rolling his eyes as the two young men told the court about what happened to them at Rannoch.

An unimpressed Judge Collins sternly told Wallace, who would sometimes arrive late and use his phone, to behave in the courtroom.

That trial, however, would never finish.

The Family Bar tape and talk of a body bag

After two weeks of evidence, Judge Collins aborted the trial and told the jury to go home.

It was due to the shocking emergence of what became known as the Family Bar tape, found on a phone Edmonds had given to one of her nieces.

Less than 24 hours after returning from the Gold Coast, Goulter and Edmonds sat down with Wallace’s manager at the gay bar on Karangahape Rd. Again the conversation was recorded.

The Family Bar conversation begins with Wallace’s manager explaining why Mika was included in the scheme – a business deal with the rich-lister.

The group then quickly turn their attention to the indecent assault victim they were trying to dissuade from giving evidence. They call the victim delusional.

“What I want to know is we have this person ready to get on the plane and bring here, is happy to do so and happy to do what we want them to do, but I need to know what the scope is, with what we can do and what we can offer, if we can offer anything,” Goulter said.

“Because I don’t want to offer him something that we can’t fulfil.”

Goulter also raises the prospect of other options – intimidating the victim.

“Intimidation is fine, but it involves a number of things so I need to be very clear of what the parameters are,” he said.

The manager, who confirms he is acting on behalf of Wallace, said if the victim had a “comprehensive hold on reality” they would accept a reasonable offer to drop their allegations.

Goulter, seemingly concerned about not getting paid, also discusses the willingness of Wallace to continue funding efforts to stop the case. But the group remain confident they can finish the deal and allude to “scare tactics”.

“It’s not a nice tactic though, so … I don’t think we need to go down that path, what I’m wanting to know is, does [Wallace] want to spend money, a little bit of money, on an opportunity or does he want us to scare the f**king shit out of him and potentially instigate something?” Goulter asks.

Referring to Wallace, the manager replies: “The only thing that pisses him off and makes him get cold feet is when he feels like it’s a slippery slope and it won’t get a resolution.

“He’s happy to bleed if it gets resolved but he’s like thinking, it’s never getting resolved, I’m just going to keep bleeding and we’re going to end up in court with everyone knowing.”

The manager, seemingly jokingly, also mentions a conversation he had with Wallace about sending the victim to Turkey to have him killed.

“… you know, we going to put you in Istanbul, traffic accident, Gypsies there are cheap man, they do [it] for two hundred US, you know like, we jokingly talked about it, [Wallace] laughed and was like, ‘this is not funny’, so, I don’t know,” he said.

Goulter replied: “Maybe he wouldn’t tell you if he was going to do that?”

The manager said: “I think it would depend on how desperate he is.” Goulter added he knew a friend who could help arrange “a deal or put him in a body bag”.

Guilty: Wallace is convicted but keeps his name secret

After several pre-trial hearings, delays due to Covid-19, and Mika X admitting their guilt in the conspiracy, Wallace was back on trial in early 2021.

Now there were three victims who were accusing him of indecent assault – all of which occurred at his Epsom mansion.

After the first trial was aborted, a third victim had come forward to police after reading the Herald’s reports of the case, alleging Wallace had indecently assaulted him in the early 2000s.

The third victim described his assault at the hands of Wallace at another dinner and business meeting.

“He found me attractive and there was a reason why I was there alone,” the man said. “There was a reason he invited me to the house and that it may not have been for business.”

The pair went for a tour of Rannoch after dinner, he explained, but Wallace was seemingly lurking behind him.

Then the businessman asked to “go upstairs for a cuddle”, the victim recalled.

“It’s just a cuddle,” Wallace told him. “What’s wrong with a cuddle?”

The man recalled Wallace being surprisingly strong, despite his age.

“I said, ‘look thanks for the evening and I’m going to go’.”

As he walked to his car on the driveway, the victim said he offered to shake Wallace’s hand.

“At that point [the businessman] grabbed my trousers and yanked them outwards and stuck his hand down my pants,” he told the court.

“His hand was hard, he was just grabbing … I just remember this sort of smell, this sort of sweaty, musky, alcohol smell.

“The last thing I recall is seeing him in the rear-view mirror.”

Years went by with the man only telling his partner of what happened, he said.

“I guess I was also a little bit embarrassed. I didn’t want to appear weak that I’d let this man get his hand into my pants.”

Wallace pleads for help: ‘Innocent people can and do rot in jail’

Wallace was found guilty of all three charges and of twice attempting to pervert the course of justice.

His lawyer, Jones, told jurors during the trial that the victims were liars and had fabricated stories for ulterior motives, including revenge over failed business ventures and wanting to be part of the MeToo movement.

“They want to bring someone down, for whatever reason,” Jones said. “They know they have suppression, it’s a matter of law, they know they can come along and throw rocks without being named.”

He said Wallace had been “painted as this ogre, but he is the vulnerable one”.

Ahead of his sentencing in May 2021, which had been delayed due to his increasing health concerns, Wallace emailed more than 100 people and organisations asking for letters of support to present to the judge.

“Some time ago we sent you the attached email asking for a letter of support but it appears that there has been no response,” the email read.

“I would greatly appreciate such support … I am innocent of all charges as I have stated in my earlier email.”

Wallace also confidently claimed he would “win the appeal”.

“I would doubt I would survive any period in prison. In these circumstances, innocent people can and do rot in jail only to be cleared some time later. Such is the law.”

Justice Geoffrey Venning, who sentenced Wallace to two years and four months imprisonment, said the rich lister had an “inability” to accept his offending.

“You consider yourself to be a victim of the tall poppy syndrome,” he told Wallace. “Your sense of self-entitlement is repeated in the affidavit you provided for sentencing, it displays a lack of empathy for your victims and confirms your lack of insight into your offending.”

Wallace’s lack of remorse also infuriated his victims.

Some in New Zealand’s arts world said “these indiscretions can be overlooked” because of Wallace’s significant philanthropy, while Jones said Wallace has made an “unparalleled contribution” to the country.

Wallace initially spent several weeks serving his sentence in a prison cell before eventually being granted bail on a third attempt in August 2021, pending the appeal of his convictions and sentence.

After a hearing was held in Wellington last September, the Court of Appeal dismissed Wallace’s challenge. The Supreme Court would later do the same.

After dismissing his appeals, the Court of Appeal also quashed Wallace’s bail and ordered him to report to the Department of Corrections at Mount Eden Prison on February 21.

Just a short walk from his Epsom mansion is the prison.

It is there he remains.