UPDATE: THE former union official accused of setting Craig Thomson up “with a bunch of hookers” says he feels vindicated after the disgraced former MP was today found guilty of using members’ funds to pay for sex.

Thomson accused Marco Balano, former deputy general secretary of Health Services Union East, of setting him up after threatening to destroy his career before allegations of misusing his union credit cards surfaced.

A defiant Thomson publicly denied the allegations as untrue for several years before his arrest by police at his parliamentary office in January last year.

He even made an impassioned plea to parliament in 2012 during which he claimed Mr Bolano “threatened to set me up with hookers”.

“There was a particular threat made ... by Marco Bolano ... to the effect that he would seek to ruin any political career that I might have sought by setting me up with a ‘bunch of hookers’,” Thomson claimed.

He also claimed to have several witnesses who signed statements of complaint in 2005 claiming they had witnessed Mr Bolano threatening to try and set Mr Thomson up with prostitutes.

Mr Bolano later responded to the claims calling them “fantastic” and “dishonest”.

Magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg today found Thomson was guilty of six charges of using HSU credit cards to pay for sex, as well as other charges including theft.

Other charges involving hiring pornographic movies and spousal travel were dismissed.

“He’s got the hide of a rhinoceros,” Mr Bolano told the Herald Sun today.

“I knew there was no way he could get out of it,” he said.

“It is a vindication though, that he has been found guilty.

“It is a vindication that the lies he told about me under parliamentary privilege have been proven to be c — p.”

Mr Bolano said he believed Thomson had an “overwhelming sense of entitlement”.

“I actually believe in his mind, even though he knows he breached the law, he doesn’t believe he did anything wrong,” he said.

“But these offences took place immediately after he took office (in 2003).

“It was the culture within the union.”

Mr Bolano said the planned Royal Commission into unions would uncover more skeletons in union cupboards.

HSU acting national secretary Chris Brown said the union would look at options to recover the money defrauded by Mr Thomson.

“I promised the HSU members that we would seek to recover any monies stolen from the union and that is exactly what we intend to do,” he said.

Mr Thomson is still facing civil proceedings in the Federal Court brought by the General Manager of Fair Work Australia.

In his decision announced today, Mr Rozencwajg found Thomson must have known he didn’t have authority to use the card for sex.

“It was an affront to common sense to say it allowed paying for sex workers,” he said.

Thomson slumped back in his chair as Mr Rozencwajg read his way through his ruling, which lasted more than 30 minutes.

A packed courtroom watched as Mr Rozencwajg, who has presided over Mr Thomson’s case since he first appeared in court last February, handed down his decision just after 11am AEST.

Mr Thomson, who pleaded not guilty to 145 dishonesty charges over the alleged misuse of $28,449 between 2002 and 2008, has persistently denied any wrongdoing.

But police argued he used members’ funds while head of the HSU to pay for porn, prostitutes, travel for his then wife, and cigarettes.

During a lengthy contest hearing last month prosecutors tendered more than 80 witness statements including some from escort workers.

One, who used the name Misty, said she remembered Mr Thomson clearly.

She said she met him on a series of occasions while she was working for Room Services escort agency in Sydney’s Surry Hills between 2007 and 2008.

In her statement, tendered at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court during the hearing, the woman said she regularly met him in Sydney’s CBD.

He had introduced himself as Craig, a solicitor from the NSW Central Coast.

“Sex always occurred on the bed and he would shower before and after,” she said.

“On the occasions when Craig and I met, as part of my services he started by offering me a glass of champagne.

“From memory he already had the champagne ready.”

They met on about six occasions, she said.

“He was a person who I noticed did not wear a wedding ring and did not speak of having a wife or whether he was in any form of committed relationship,” she said.

“He was one of three men who I would have called a regular client.’’

Nelson Da Silva, a former director of escort service Tiffany’s Girls, said Mr Thomson would have been one of about 200 to visit the Sydney brothel on a Saturday night in June 2005.

He told police his records matched a $418 transaction on Mr Thomson’s HSU Commonwealth Bank MasterCard.

“It stated the time frame for the booking was 1.5 hours with $190 for the room rental,” he said.

“The room was RT which was a Red Turbo Spa Room — this room was one of our expensive rooms.”

Mr Thomson’s defence barrister, Greg James, QC, said Mr Thomson did not deny making the transactions but argued about his authority to do so.

The case had been thrown into turmoil after closing submissions by both parties last month, when Mr Rozencwajg asked prosecutors about the wording of the charges.

He said many of the theft and deception charges were unnecessarily confusing and complex and may have been charged incorrectly.

The Abbott Government wants Mr Thomson and Bill Shorten to say both sorry following the verdict.

“Mr Thomson owes an apology to the thousands of honest union members he defrauded, in addition to the Parliament and public, whom he also misled,” Employment Minister Eric Abetz said.

The Senator believes the Opposition Leader should follow on behalf of the Labor Party, “for its role in promoting and protecting Craig Thomson for so many years”.

“Until he does so, Australians can have no confidence that the party has learned any lessons from the Thomson saga.”

The Coalition claims the results proves the need for a Royal Commission into union corruption.

Mr Thomson will return to court on March 18 for a plea hearing.

Shannon.deery@news.com.au

News_Image_File: Red Turbo Spa Room at Tiffany's, where Craig Thomson used his union credit cards to pay for sex.

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— with Jennifer Rajca