Having marked her 50th with a lavish party she threw allegedly using her boss’s money, one year later Annalouise Spence spent her 51st on remand in a Sydney jail.
Accused fraudster Annalouise Spence has been charged with a further 14 dishonesty offences, bringing the total of charges she is facing to 82. The one-time personal secretary to billionaire philanthropist Judith Neilson is alleged to have defrauded her former boss of around $1.6 million.
Having been refused bail, Spence spent her 51st birthday on April 29 in the Dillwynia Correctional Centre, a maximum security facility for female offenders, near Windsor. This was a far cry from the lavish 50th birthday party she threw for herself, allegedly using her boss’s funds, in April last year at the five-star Capella Hotel in Sydney’s CBD. Among the 82 charges of dishonestly obtaining property by deception she is now facing, several relate to last year’s birthday bash.
This includes the $1000 Spence is alleged to have spent on 324 cocktail napkins monogrammed with her initials. According to the court documents, from 2019 to 2023, Spence is alleged to have used Neilson’s NAB credit card to purchase luxury clothes, household goods, jewellery and artwork. Police allege Spence spent a total of $9270 on Blacklane Chauffeur services as well as almost $6000 on mattress toppers from Domayne.
In October 2022, the court attendance notice indicates she spent $11,413 on jewellery from Cartier London. The following month, she is alleged to have used Neilson’s NAB card to purchase three pieces of artwork totalling $10,519 from a gallery in Seattle.
However, in March 2023, the court documents indicate that Spence obtained a supplementary American Express credit card in her own name but “without the authority of the account holder Judith Neilson”. Police will allege that Neilson, one of the most influential figures in the Australian arts and philanthropic worlds, had no idea that Spence had obtained a card attached to her account or that her secretary had removed her finance team’s oversight of Neilson’s Amex account.
Spence’s first purchases on the Black Amex card in March 2023 were tickets to see the Cure in Seattle, first-class flights to Seattle, via Los Angeles, and baseball tickets. The total of these items was $29,118, according to the court documents. Two months later, she was treating herself to a five-night stay at New York’s famous Carlyle Hotel, which cost $38,757.
She is also alleged to have spent thousands on her husband Adam’s 50th birthday, as well as buying him a $15,000 racing bike. The charges also include the purchase of three Louis Vuitton passport covers totalling $1740, items of jewellery totalling more than $64,000 and tickets to a box at the Coldplay concert in Brisbane, costing $5250. Spence was arrested on 23 April following the execution of search warrants at her home in Erskineville, in Sydney’s inner west.
Throughout the day, police could be seen coming out of Spence’s house with artwork, designer shoes, luxury handbags and monogrammed Louis Vuitton trunks. Police also raided a house owned by the couple at Police Point, in Tasmania’s Huon Valley, as well as a storage facility in the outer Sydney suburb of Campbelltown.
Spence, who worked for Neilson for eight years until September 2025, was refused bail with the police prosecutor telling the local court that the former secretary was accused of a “large-scale financial crime” and that there was a risk she would fail to appear or interfere with witnesses and evidence. Spence’s matter will be mentioned in the Supreme Court on Friday to fix a date for another bail hearing.
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