Oz brothel king moves in

THE former owner of a Sydney brothel, once accused of kidnapping his manager in an incident involving gunmen, has opened a beachside restaurant in one of Auckland's most exclusive suburbs.

Graeme George Edwards, who owned the $1000-an-hour Boardroom Escort Agency, faced a Sydney court in February last year accused of kidnapping his brothel manager Ian Chandler.

But Edwards' brothel was already notorious before the alleged abduction. In 2004, after David Beckham's former personal assistant Rebecca Loos said she had slept with him, Australian model Sarah Marbeck told The Sun that she, too, had bedded the soccer superstar.

The newspaper went on to interview people who knew Marbeck, including Edwards, who said he had employed her in the months following the claimed affair.

This week Sunday News tracked Edwards down at his latest business venture, a Mexican restaurant called El Centro, in Auckland's swanky Mission Bay where he has started a new life.

He has tried to put the incident with his Sydney brothel manager behind him. According to police documents handed up to Sydney's Central Local Court in February 2008, Edwards called then manager Chandler to his office and accused him of embezzling $100,000 from his company.

The documents alleged Chandler, 47 at the time, handed over $4000 and two mobile phones.

Edwards, then allegedly made a phone call and three other men, two armed with pistol, arrived and threatened Chandler.

Edwards is then alleged to have said: "I told you I was connected".

Chandler was then allegedly taken outside and forced into a cab with the two armed men, but escaped when the car stopped. The men were allegedly taking Chandler to his house to seize money, a power-ski, a car and a cache of pistols and rifles.

Three months after Edwards' arrest his lawyers had the case dropped. No charges relating to the embezzlement allegations were ever laid.

Melbourne-born Edwards, who described himself as the "biggest player in Australia's sex industry, told Sunday News this week that the kidnapping case caused him to re-think his life.

After briefly moving to Hollywood, Edwards stopped off in Auckland, and decided to make a new life for himself here. "I went to America and was on my way back to Sydney, I stopped off in Auckland and fell in love with the place."

Edwards is believed to have opened El Centro in July, and has plans for more restaurants. "I'm never one to miss an opportunity and I like to build restaurants and things," he said.

Asked about the kidnapping case, Edwards was dismissive. "That is old news, yesterday's fish and chip paper. Now I am just getting on with things. That whole thing was a pack of lies, for (Chandler) the best form of defence was attack."

Edwards told Sunday News that he has no plans to open a high-class brothel in New Zealand as there was "no market for it".

"There is just not the same type of clientele over here. We were dealing with a corporate market and people who had money."

He told The Sun at the time of the Beckham scandal, that Marbeck was good in bed.

"I rated her. I think if David Beckham has been to bed with her, he's a lucky guy," he said.