A man threatened to kill alleged Australian drug mule Cassie Sainsbury or her family if she didn't try to board a Colombian flight, her lawyer says.
Lawyer Orlando Herran told the Nine Network's 60 Minutes the 22-year-old South Australian woman was in financial trouble after problems with her fitness business when she answered a Craigslist ad offering a loan and trip to London.
Mr Herran said the itinerary was changed at the last minute before Sainsbury met a mystery man, who showed her pictures of her family and fiance and made threats in Colombia.
"If you don't get to fly we will be threatening or killing your family or you," Mr Herran, who said the woman tried to back out of her return itinerary, told 60 Minutes.
"Cassandra isn't a bad person. She is a young girl with a ... mistake."
Sainsbury is being held at a Bogota prison, after 5.8kg of cocaine were allegedly found inside 18 headphone cases inside her luggage at El Dorado International Airport.
The 60 Minutes program also revealed the personal trainer spent five months last year allegedly working as a sex worker at western Sydney brothel, Club 220.
A woman claiming to be a former colleague from the brothel said Sainsbury would fly in and out from Adelaide to work at the club.
She said other sex workers gave Sainsbury money when she falsely claimed her mother had died.
"Cassandra is not the naive, sweet little blonde girl that everybody thinks she is," the unidentified woman said.
Sainsbury, whose family had said she was duped while on a working holiday, faces more than 20 years in jail.
Her mother, Lisa Evans, told 60 Minutes that she believes her daughter is innocent.
"It goes against everything she stands for," she said.
"I believe she's a 100 per cent innocent and I always will."
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