The inside story of Courgette owner James Mussillon's rise and criminal demise

While most Canberrans are soon to be largely confined to their homes for nine weeks, James Mussillon is staring down the barrel of spending much longer in a prison cell.

So, with his liberty at stake and the future of his acclaimed restaurant up in the air, the frustrated cook makes a desperate attempt to explain the somewhat inexplicable.

Why would a celebrated chef and restaurateur launder drug money, defraud the federal government and consistently lie to authorities, for almost no financial benefit of his own?

Still largely in denial and bemoaning what he labels a "witch hunt" as he sits in a Canberra police station, five years of deceit finally uncovered, he offers investigators a hint.

"Just trying to be a nice guy," Mussillon fumes. "F---ing hell, I got screwed."

The comment, while flippant, offers an interesting insight into the complex mind of Mussillon, whose cooking career has brought him fame and widespread acclaim.

Professional popularity is one thing, but social acceptance is another.

And, as Mussillon discovered, you don't make friends with your one-hat status.

A "sensation-seeking" desire to address his social isolation is, in the opinion of a neuropsychologist, what led the 51-year-old to use Courgette, his exclusive Civic eatery, to clean a drug dealer's dirty cash.

Mussillon's descent into organised crime was a slow one, with its roots in his childhood.

Raised by "strict but loving" parents in Sydney, where he was sometimes subjected to corporal punishment at home, he struggled at school and was bullied by other children.

He told a forensic psychiatrist, one of two experts who assessed him as part of his court case, that he eventually became "clown of the class" before leaving school at 15.

While Mussillon struggled academically, he had a talent for woodwork and cookery.

He decided to make the latter his career, spending nearly a decade working in a Sydney restaurant and honing his craft under some high-profile chefs in London.

Mussillon moved around the turn of the millennium to Canberra, where he eventually opened his own eateries.

Despite struggling with "the whole business side", as he put it, he managed to simultaneously operate a number of successful restaurants before scaling back to just one in order to maintain high standards.

His approach impressed the critics, who raved about Courgette, praising the modern European restaurant on Marcus Clarke Street as "a spot for special occasions" and a place for "unashamedly old-school fine dining".

While he might have been the toast of his customers, Mussillon lived a very different life outside the kitchen.

Court documents reveal he spent significant chunks of his limited spare time gambling large sums of money, with the baccarat table at Casino Canberra a common haunt.

Self-described as "fearless" and "hopeless" with his money, Mussillon became something of a magnet for fellow gamblers when they found themselves needing a quick cash injection.

He would be only too happy to loan someone tens of thousands of dollars, then save their number in his phone under names like "lent money from casino".

The arrangement, he told police, was typically along the lines of: "Oh, just pay me back."

"It's hard-earned money," he said. "It just comes and goes."

One of the people to benefit from Mussillon's money was Con, whose surname the restaurateur told police he did not know despite the "Greek guy" being a "good friend".

In reality, court documents reveal Mussillon's casino companions are not really his mates.

They show he has never been in an intimate relationship and has only ever had two good friends, both of whom took their own lives.

His only friends now, he told the author of a psychiatric report, are his employees.

"I'm their boss," he told the psychiatrist. "I can be in control."

Seeking to do something about his isolation and "inflate his self-concept", he took an interest in his drug-dealing co-offender between 2016 and 2021.

During that time, Mussillon laundered more than $360,000 for this man, who cannot be named, by receiving his drug money and paying it back to him.

He used descriptions that included "Courgette pay", disguising the funds as "wages".

Mussillon also lied to a court to help secure the drug dealer bail on unrelated charges and collected JobKeeper payments he was not entitled to because he did not employ the man.

Additionally, he misled police in a failed attempt to regain a six-figure sum of cash, which belonged to the drug dealer, after investigators seized the money.

While the painstaking work of detectives gives a clear answer to the question of what Mussillon did, the mystery of why remains a tough nut to crack.

Save for some small tax benefits and $31,900 in JobSeeker payments, Mussillon appears to have risked everything for almost nothing.

He did not receive a cut of the money he laundered and, while he bought a Lamborghini with money provided by the drug dealer, it was not really his car.

The Lamborghini was in fact the drug dealer's car to drive and even to crash, which he did at one stage, leaving Mussillon, as its registered owner, to sort out insurance issues.

"He gets the headache of having the Lamborghini in his name, but not the benefit of actually driving it," defence barrister Matthew Johnston SC told a sentence hearing last month.

But a much mightier headache arrived at Mussillon's door in Bonner, where he lived before he was arrested in 2021, when detectives also seized the luxury vehicle.

En route to City Police Station after his apprehension, he insisted police had "got it all wrong" and he had "no idea" why he was in custody.

Sitting in an interview room later the same day, he claimed to be "blown away" and "flabbergasted" by the charges he faced.

"All I've done is work," a defiant Mussillon told detectives.

"I have no family. I have no children. I have nothing ... My whole life is around work and my customers. I'm a good person, really."

He appeared offended by the mere suggestion he had done anything illegitimate, even declaring at one stage that he was not "one of these f---ing dodgy restaurateurs".

"You know we f---ing pay your taxes, for f---'s sake," he also angrily told investigators.

Towards the end of the 877 questions fired at him, Mussillon finally made partial admissions to the money laundering.

After spending that night in the police watch house cells, he served the next 224 in Canberra's jail after magistrate James Lawton refused bail and remanded him in custody.

His own high-quality cuisine suddenly replaced by inferior prison food, Mussillon's fall from grace was steep.

For the majority of the seven-and-a-half months he served behind bars on remand, inmates spent 23 hours a day locked down because of intense COVID-19 restrictions.

Mussillon's time was especially harsh. He was assaulted three times, attributing one bashing to other inmates deciding to extort him because they "clued on" to his wealth.

Eventually, after pleading guilty to five charges, including perjury, money laundering and fraud, he was released on bail to await his sentencing.

Since coming clean, Mussillon has spent some time on the NSW South Coast with his parents, bought a home in Watson, and worked up to 70 hours per week at his restaurant.

He has expressed shame at his crimes, which have been attributed to his "social incompetence" and his decision to pursue friendships with nefarious characters.

"It's the biggest nightmare of my life," he told one of the mental health professionals who assessed him as part of his court case. "I never gained anything."

Mussillon has also rued his failure to ask police for help, instead allowing himself to be drawn increasingly deeper into what he described as a "spider web" of criminality.

"I feel horrible," he told a psychiatrist.

"I assume everyone knows about my charges. I'm not proud of what I did. I feel like I've ruined myself. I should know better. I'm remorseful of it. I've learnt to understand it. I wasn't educated enough."

While Mussillon lamented his lack of education, he knew a reasonable amount about legal proceedings by the time he entered the ACT Supreme Court to be sentenced on Tuesday.

He had previously been before courts in NSW, where his criminal history dates back to 1996 and includes entries for malicious damage, and assaulting and intimidating police.

While Mussillon received a suspended jail term for the latter crimes, and others committed on the same date in 2016, his most recent offending was unquestionably his most serious.

Still wearing the sunglasses that adorned his eyes as he entered the courthouse, he sat, stone-faced, in a corridor as he waited to learn whether he would walk out as a free man.

While it took Justice David Mossop some time to read his sentencing remarks, Mussillon appeared to realise his fate early on as two correctional officers entered the courtroom.

He made little fuss as he was ultimately returned to custody to serve roughly four-and-a-half more months, handing his phone to an elderly woman in the public gallery and verbally acknowledging his release date in late August.

His drastic fall from grace now complete, what becomes of Courgette remains unclear.

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