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Anthony Koletti, the second husband of late fraudster Melissa Caddick, faces considerable legal costs after abandoning his multimillion-dollar claim on his wife’s estate, the Federal Court has heard.
Koletti had claimed he was entitled to millions of dollars of his wife’s proceeds of crime. On Monday, the court heard he will keep his wedding ring, a watch and two of his wife’s dresses. But not her Gucci wedding dress.
Melissa Caddick and Anthony Koletti pictured on their wedding day on New Year’s Eve in 2013.
Caddick, 49, vanished three years ago following a raid on her house by the corporate watchdog. Her partial remains contained in her running shoe washed up on a remote beach three months later. This year, a coroner concluded she was dead, but the manner of her death remained inconclusive.
Over an eight-year period, Caddick funded her extravagant lifestyle by stealing more than $23 million from her family and friends who thought they were investing in shares.
The Federal Court appointed receivers to trace assets and then sell them to return money to her victims.
Foreshadowing that the receivers would be seeking a costs order against Koletti, Michael Hayter, solicitor for the receivers, told the court on Monday, “There’s been a complete backing down by Mr Koletti in his various claims.”
Anthony Koletti and Melissa Caddick in April 2020.
In April last year, Koletti, whom she married in on New Year’s Eve 2013, claimed he was entitled to a large portion of his wife’s proceeds of crime, including her Gucci wedding dress, $7 million in shares, $2 million worth of jewellery, artworks, the $360,000 proceeds from the sale of their luxury cars, as well as two properties he claimed were valued at $20 million.
Since that time, Caddick’s trophy home in Dover Heights sold for $9.8 million, while an Edgecliff penthouse is still on the market with expectations of more than $5 million.
In a subsequent interview with Channel Seven, Koletti justified his claims saying: “Melissa never gave me a cent … I always pay for myself … It’s not like I was some desperate Double Bay housewife living off the wife, which is what everyone else thinks. Why wouldn’t I be entitled to something?”
However, when his wife went missing, Koletti told the Federal Court he had only $1.95 to his name and he had quit employment as a part-time hairdresser. “All my living expenses and those of our Dover Heights household are paid for by Melissa Caddick,” he told the court in December 2020.
Over time, Koletti abandoned most of his claims. On Monday, the court heard Koletti will keep his wedding ring, a watch and two of his wife’s dresses, but not the Gucci wedding dress.
The watch and the ring were late withdrawals from last December’s jewellery auction after Koletti’s lawyers lodged an objection to the sale of a 9.4-carat white gold diamond and sapphire men’s ring acquired by Caddick for $8000 in 2013, and an $11,270 Breitling Navitimer watch.
His stepson has also agreed to hand over the most expensive items in his designer sports shoe collection, valued about $20,000.
Caddick’s first husband Anthony Caddick and her brother Adam Grimley have confirmed that a superannuation account with their signatures as trustees had been forged by Caddick.
The $30,000 in the account, along with a second account with the same amount, should be the property of the receivers, the court heard.
The matter will return to court on December 4.
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