Nathan Tinkler's lawyer says the embattled former coal baron's dash for half a billion dollars of Wall Street cash has been jeopardised by "flimsy" allegations at the corruption watchdog.
Mr Tinkler's company Buildev has been accused of funnelling tens of thousands of dollars in illicit donations to NSW Liberal politicians and funding a smear campaign against former Newcastle Labor MP Jodi McKay.
But a lawyer for the entrepreneur unsuccessfully demanded on Friday those allegations be withdrawn, telling the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) the claims were flimsy at best and had wrought havoc on Mr Tinkler's reputation.
"He goes to Wall Street next week with an endeavour to raise half a billion dollars and they say to him, 'You are a corrupt businessman running a Tinkler scheme to bribe politicians in the state of NSW', and they show him the door," solicitor Harland Koops said.
The businessman said he had been made the scapegoat for alleged corruption at the highest levels of NSW developer Buildev.
Mr Tinkler agreed that he stumped $50,000 for a cabal of businessmen agitating for political change in Newcastle at the 2011 NSW election, and his company Boardwalk Resources put up $53,000 for the federal Liberal Party.
But he denied funding a damaging leaflet campaign targeting Ms McKay, who stood in the way of a Buildev coal-loader plan said to have been worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
It was revealed on Friday that as Buildev allegedly manoeuvred to smear Ms McKay, the wife of Buildev lobbyist David Simmons, Kaye, was working to keep her in parliament.
"You weren't informed at all about (the allegedly Buildev-funded leaflets) 'Stop Jodi's Trucks'?" counsel assisting Geoffrey Watson SC asked.
"Certainly not, given my wife was on the political campaign with Jodi at that stage," Mr Simmons replied.
Mr Tinkler said he was shocked by suggestions that $35,000 of the Boardwalk money wound up in the campaign coffers of the man who dethroned Ms McKay, former NSW MP Tim Owen, and the remaining $18,000 made its way to Londonderry MP Bart Bassett.
He says he trusted Buildev executives to handle the details.
"You know, these are senior business partners that we thought were acting in our best interests, not trying to set us up and use us as a scapegoat," he said.
He told the ICAC he was nothing more than an investor in Buildev, "an investment I deeply regret now".
Mr Tinkler has also said he knew nothing about the mysterious "big man" alluded to in text messages obtained by the ICAC, who was apparently tapped for a $120,000 donation before the NSW election.
"One thing that has become apparent to me through this whole inquiry is how many people have used my name, including Buildev, for their own advantage," Mr Tinkler said.
The ICAC's long-running cash-for-favours probe has focused heavily on Buildev and other businesses with links to Mr Tinkler.
The saga has already dethroned energy minister Chris Hartcher and police minister Mike Gallacher, forced Mr Owen and another MP to resign from parliament altogether and sent others to the crossbenches, the latest being Mr Bassett.
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