Anthony Koletti, partner of con-woman Melissa Caddick, charged with common assault
He continued on his walk and then as he looped back, he walked past the couple again. One of the two allegedly took a photo of him and handed it in to police.
On Tuesday police made an appeal for information, releasing a photograph on Facebook of a man in a black Under Armour t-shirt, black cap and sunglasses.
In a statement police said a 73-year-old woman alleged she was assaulted by a man at about 5pm on Wednesday, July 23 in Lighthouse Reserve at Vaucluse.
The elderly woman did not require medical treatment.
Police made a public appeal for information on Tuesday, releasing the image of a man in a black Under Armour t-shirt, black cap and sunglasses.
Mr Koletti, 43, attended Waverley Police Station at about 6.30pm on Wednesday, and has since been charged with common assault.
He was granted conditional bail to appear at the Downing Centre Local Court on September 5.
NewsWire approached Mr Koletti at the hairdressing salon where he works in Rose Bay earlier on Wednesday.
The part-time DJ and hairdresser refused to speak to our reporter and asked him to leave the salon after realising he was not there for a haircut.
Ms Caddick went missing just hours after her Dover Heights mansion was raided by the AFP and ASIC in November 2020.
The raid was conducted over a Ponzi scheme which she used to fleece investors of $20m to $30m.
Ms Caddick's severed foot was found three months later on an isolated beach on the NSW South Coast, some 400km away from where she was last seen.
A coronial inquest held in 2023 found Ms Caddick was dead, but did not determine how, when, or where she died.
During the inquest, Deputy State Coroner Elizabeth Ryan concluded it was 'most unlikely' the foot was severed 'as a result of a deliberate act'.
Mr Koletti has never been charged with any crime relating to Ms Caddick's disappearance or her criminal actions and is not accused of any wrongdoing in relation to either her activities or disappearance.
When Caddick's shoe with skeletal remains washed up on a remote South Coast beach three months after she vanished, some hypothesised she faked her own death.
However, Deputy State Coroner Elizabeth Ryan ruled it was unlikely she severed her own foot in order to go on the run, saying there was no trail of evidence and she would have needed medical attention.
The coroner ruled Caddick was dead; however, it could not be determined how, when and where she died.
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ABC News
20 minutes ago
- ABC News
Before the Falconio trial, Bradley John Murdoch was accused and acquitted of rape and abduction
Before Bradley John Murdoch was arrested for English backpacker Peter Falconio's disappearance and the attempted kidnapping of Joanne Lees, the killer faced charges of raping a woman and her 12-year-old daughter. WARNING: This story contains content that some readers may find upsetting. He was eventually acquitted of all charges relating to the case, but the events of the alleged 20-hour kidnapping ordeal that were relayed in the South Australian District Court have some similarities to the Falconio and Lees case. In 2003, more than two years after Murdoch had killed Mr Falconio at Barrow Creek in the Northern Territory, a court heard the mother and daughter, who were allegedly abducted from their Riverland home, were also bound, gagged and sexually assaulted during the 20-hour ordeal. The mother, who cannot be named, told the court that as the alleged incident came to an end, she did not know if she and her daughter would survive. "After the trailer was packed up, he sat near the trailer staring at us … and I didn't know if he was going to let us go or not," she said in 2003. "Are you going to kill us?" she asked. In the South Australian case, Murdoch was charged with two counts of rape, two counts of abduction, assault and two counts of indecent assault, but he was later acquitted. According to the court transcripts, Murdoch, who died on July 15, had been a regular guest at the Riverland home the mother and daughter shared with the mother's de facto partner, who was away receiving cancer treatment in Adelaide. They had known each other for 18 months. It was alleged that when he stayed, Murdoch used a small guest house at the back of the property as an occasional base for his drug-running operation between the Riverland and Broome, in Western Australia. On his last visit to the property in August 2002, Murdoch, who the court heard was using amphetamines and cannabis daily, put black plastic on the windows of the small flat. The court heard on the pretence of helping him unpack maps, Murdoch asked the 12-year-old daughter to come out to the guest house before he allegedly raped her. "I think he said: 'If you move, I'll give you brain damage'," she told the court. She said Murdoch carried her out to his LandCruiser and chained her up before going inside to the main house to abduct her mother. Prosecutor Liesl Chapman, now District Court Judge Liesl Kudelka, said in her opening statement to the jury that Murdoch told the mother: "Shut up and put some warm clothes on" before he took her outside. "The accused was wearing a gun in his shoulder holster," Ms Chapman said. "She saw the LandCruiser and [her daughter] in the back. "The accused said to [her], 'I need some insurance to get away from this place, get in the back or I'll shoot you'." The prosecution said that Murdoch had spoken about the disappearance of Peter Falconio several times before and during the abduction. "[The mother] asked the accused, 'Why are you doing this?'" Ms Chapman said. "He said words to the effect, 'you were in the wrong place at the wrong time'. "He said that the cops had framed him for the Falconio murder and that's why he was on the run. "He kept saying that he was being framed." Ms Chapman said he told the mother he was going to Western Australia to kill a fellow drug associate and planned to turn the gun on himself. "The Crown case is that his state of mind about being framed for a very high-profile murder explains his extreme criminal behaviour in South Australia," Ms Chapman said. "He was paranoid that he was being set up. "He was using amphetamines, commonly known as speed, which … can increase paranoia. "At that stage he didn't care anymore, he raped a 12-year-old girl and then took her and her mother as insurance in order to get out of there." Bradley John Murdoch's defence team argued in court that the case against him was a "made-up story". The court heard that there was a "conspiracy against" Murdoch created by his enemies, to frame him for the murder of Peter Falconio and that the claims of rape, abduction, assault and sexual assault were part of a "set-up". Just three days before he arrived in the Riverland, Murdoch's brother had given DNA evidence to Northern Territory police and the Falconio investigation team had Bradley Murdoch in its sights. The court heard in the early hours of Thursday, August 22, 2002, Murdoch drove away from the Riverland property with the mother and daughter shackled in the back. "I did what I was told because he had a gun," the mother said in court. "I was so scared I didn't know if he was going to shoot me and [my daughter]. "She [the daughter] was white as a ghost and she was terrified." The mother said they were initially handcuffed, and Murdoch stopped the LandCruiser three times over the next 20 hours, during which he was also alleged to have raped the mother. He also bound them with cable ties, similar to the ones used when Murdoch abducted Joanne Lees. She described him at one point as like "a raging bull". "He was verging on psychotic, like really angry and terrifying," the mother said. Eventually, she demanded Murdoch cut the cable ties off as they were hurting their wrists and cutting her daughter's circulation. The court heard the mother told the accused he was "pathetic for tying up a 12-year-old child". Then the court heard his mood changed, he brought clothes out for the pair and became "more sympathetic". "To me it seemed like he thought that he had done nothing wrong and he was just talking to us normally like he used to when we used to be friends," the mother said. The court heard he eventually dropped the pair at a Port Augusta service station and gave them $1,000 to get home, before allegedly making a final threat to kill them if they went to police. The mother and daughter said even after being released they remained fearful that he was still in the area watching them. They caught a cab to the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where the mother's partner was, but a report wasn't made to police for another five days. Murdoch was arrested by heavily-armed police outside a Port Augusta supermarket, and was remanded in custody to face court in South Australia. Inside the LandCruiser after Murdoch's arrest police alleged they found chains, clothes, cannabis, methamphetamine and $5,000. But, during a two-week trial, the prosecution failed to make its case and Murdoch was acquitted. Seconds later, as he walked out of the court, he was arrested inside Adelaide's Samuel Way building for Peter Falconio's murder and the abduction of Joanne Lees and escorted through a media scrum outside. He was then taken to Darwin where he was found guilty in 2005. Central Queensland University criminologist, Associate Professor Xanthe Mallett, said while there were obviously similarities between the Falconio and Lees case and the Riverland allegations, ultimately the South Australian jury could not be convinced of Murdoch's guilt. "It is a big deal to come forward, it turns your life upside down, it re-traumatises the victim-survivors and so to go through all of that and then for the perpetrator to be found not guilty is heartbreaking," Dr Mallett said. "We are talking 20 years ago, if there was gap between the alleged crime and somebody reporting then that certainly made it harder to prove … and sex crimes are very hard to prove anyway. Dr Mallett said it could be very hard to prove criminal cases beyond what a jury considered reasonable doubt. "Even if, on the balance of all the evidence, they think they probably are [guilty], that doubt is what makes the difference and that can be a very difficult level to achieve," Dr Mallett said. South Australia's Commissioner for Victim's Rights Sarah Quick said sexual assaults remained difficult to successfully prosecute, in part, because victims' evidence was often "fragmented, confused, and non-linear recollections are common". "The cumulative effect of giving evidence, being cross-examined, and then not being believed is deeply distressing," Commissioner Quick said. "Research demonstrates that harmful misconceptions and stereotypes about sexual assault remain widespread."
News.com.au
an hour ago
- News.com.au
Port Lincoln locals react to shock discovery of human skull in Tamika Chesser case
Port Lincoln locals Katie and her friend were walking up Slipway Rd on Thursday afternoon. Just moments earlier, police had announced they had discovered a human skull in the walking trails and scrubland between Slipway Rd and Hindmarsh Rd on the eastern edge of the popular fishing town. The discovery marked another grisly twist in the Tamika Chesser case, which has sent shockwaves through the small and close-knit Eyre Peninsula community. 'I'm relieved for the family, it's a bit of closure for them,' Katie said. 'But I feel devastated for the person that found it.' Tyson McCallum was also walking in the area when his dog Benji the Beaglier found what police believe is a human head. 'I just went in a bit closer and kind of made the connection pretty quickly as to what I thought it was,' he told 9News. '(It was) pretty surreal to be honest,' he added. 'I was kind of like 'No way, it's not what I think it is, surely not'. But it was too coincidental.' Ms Chesser, a former Beauty and the Geek contestant, is accused of murdering her boyfriend Julian Story at the pair's Port Lincoln unit around midnight on June 17. Police allege she also dismembered Mr Story's body, removing his head. Ms Chesser was then allegedly captured on CCTV in the hours afterwards walking with a bag, dogs and dressed in heavy clothing. She was arrested on June 19 and charged with murder and destroy human remains. South Australian Police and SES volunteers fanned out across the town to search for Mr Story's missing remains in the days and weeks following the alleged murder, but the search was suspended last week. But in a shock development, police announced on Thursday afternoon they believed they had found Mr Story's head. A resident walking their dog found the skull and reported it to the authorities, police said. 'Preliminary investigations and phone calls to forensic science centre (indicate) the remains are most likely human, and I believe they are the remains of Julian Story,' Detective Superintendent Darren Fielke said. 'To confirm this, those remains will be subject to further testing over the coming days. Mr Story's family have been contacted and updated on next steps, the Superintendent said. Katie's friend, who did not wish to be named, said she was no longer worried she would 'stumble across it'. Katie said the discovery would likely reignite interest among locals in the case, which has gripped the town over the past few weeks. 'It's going to go mental,' Katie said. Ms Chesser's case has generated widespread interest because of her glamorous former life and the brutal nature of the alleged killing. Greg, who has lived in Port Lincoln since the 1970s, said locals discussed the case regularly. 'It was a gruesome bloody incident,' he said, speaking before Thursday's discovery. 'This town, we've never had anything like that before.' Harley Hozer, who lives across the road from the unit complex where Ms Chesser and Mr Story lived, said the allegations had 'shook the town'. 'It shook the town a little bit,' she told NewsWire. 'We've dealt with some crime before but nothing like this. 'It shocked me, that's for sure.' Police cars and cops patrolled the entry points to the scrubland across Thursday, with police line closing off the area. Detectives could be seen walking into the trails. That same day, Ms Chesser appeared at Port Lincoln Magistrates Court at 9.30am on three separate matters. Police allege she behaved in a disorderly manner at a tobacco store on Port Lincoln's Liverpool St and at the Port Lincoln Police station, both on February 14, 2025, It is further alleged she assaulted a woman on November 1 last year. It is listed as a summary offence, meaning it is considered a low level of offending. She is also alleged to have assaulted a police officer on June 20 this year, one day after she was arrested for the alleged killing of Mr Story. The 34-year-old woman appeared via AVL from James Nash House, a psychiatric facility, where she greeted the magistrate and answered questions for the first time in court. She sported a shaved head and wore a blue sweater and greeted Magistrate Patrick Hill with a 'hello'. Justin Slater, a solicitor with the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, represented her in court. He told Mr Hill he had ordered 'reports' into the charges. 'We are doing our own reports in relation to these matters,' he said. He asked Mr Hill to adjourn matters until a charge determination had been made for Ms Chesser's more serious allegations and Mr Hill agreed to the request, setting December 18 at Port Lincoln for the next hearing. When asked if she understood her hearing would be adjourned, Ms Chesser replied: 'Yep'. Mr Slater declined to comment on the charges or Ms Chesser's condition after the hearing. Thursday's hearing marked the second time Ms Chesser had fronted court following her first appearance at Adelaide Magistrates Court last month on the murder and destroy human remains charges. Those matters are listed to be heard in Adelaide on December 12. Mr Story was a Port Lincoln local, while Ms Chesser had only recently moved to the area from Queensland. She starred in the second series of the hit reality TV show Beauty and the Geek in 2010, finishing in second place. She has also worked as a model for a range of brands including Target and appeared in men's magazines including Ralph and FHM, a profile for her on Star Now states. Her Instagram and Facebook social media profiles are filled with racy and glamorous images. A funeral service for Mr Story is expected next week.
SBS Australia
an hour ago
- SBS Australia
Don't think you're the type to join a cult? Gloria didn't think she was either
Gloria had been shopping at Melbourne Central on an ordinary morning in 2019 when a man approached her, asking her to do a survey. It seemed like an innocent interaction, but one she would later learn was part of a wider plan that involved manipulative and controlling tactics. "This guy approaches me on the street and he said he was doing a survey for university. He said he was from RMIT and could I help him," the 25-year-old tells SBS News. The man showed Gloria images of three different emojis — a dancing woman, prayer hands and an aeroplane — and asked her to choose one. She chose the prayer hands. Gloria was presented with three emojis by a friendly person who said they were a university student carrying out a survey. Source: SBS News It opened a conversation about Gloria's faith and how she had been raised in a Christian family. When she told him she was not overly religious, he asked about her hobbies, and they started talking about her passion for photography. "He was like: 'Oh, I have a friend, she is a movie director, and she knows everything about photography and videography', and then she also happens to teach the Bible, so that's how he hooked me in," she says. Plans were made for Gloria to attend a Bible study where she could meet this friend. She says she was given a warm welcome and that the group's friendly approach made her more open to learning about its interpretation of the Bible, so she started attending regularly. It went from a two-times-a-week Bible study session, then it became three times a week. Before long, Gloria found herself enmeshed in Shincheonji Church of Jesus (SCJ), a South Korean religious group many consider to be a cult. The church was founded in 1984 by Lee Man-hee and is believed to have more than 200,000 members in South Korea, and more than 30,000 members overseas. Australian universities have issued warnings to their students about Shincheonji including Adelaide University and RMIT in Melbourne. RMIT posted on its website about the "Korean religious sect posing as Bible study", describing it as a scam and cautioning students about its recruitment tactics. "Over time there will be an increased amount of time expected for Church activities, including recruiting more people to the Church," the warning reads. "There will be pressure to not maintain contact with family and friends outside of the Church and keep Church membership a secret. There will be less and less time not scheduled with the Church to fit in study and see family and friends." Such methods are expected to be under the microscope as part of an upcoming inquiry into cults and organised fringe groups in Victoria. The inquiry has been accepting submissions since April, and SBS News understands a number of those are regarding Shincheonji. Four and a half years passed before Gloria started to question the group's tactics, which she now describes as controlling and manipulative. Secrecy and promises Gloria did not think she was the type of person who would join a cult. For the first nine months of her involvement with Shincheonji, she, like other new recruits, did not know the name of the group she was being groomed into. It was revealed to her at a ceremony held around the nine-month mark, in which she and other new members were encouraged to signify their commitment. On its Korean website, the organisation explains that Shincheonji means "new heaven and new Earth". Australian branches of the group connect back to South Korea's Shincheonji Church of Jesus (SCJ), and its Melbourne chapter has been registered as a charity since 2022. Lee is touted by his followers as the 'promised pastor' who will take 144,000 people with him to heaven on the 'day of judgement', which he professes will happen within his lifetime. Lee Man-hee is the chair of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, based in South Korea. Source: AAP Gloria says while the group's more dubious motives, including withholding its name, may seem obvious in hindsight, they were harder for her to spot at first. "They share a lot of Christian-related doctrines in the very beginning, but over time they change the teaching slowly, without people even realising," she says. "Once they start getting you on-side, they'll start teaching you a bit more of what they really want to teach you, they take your reaction and if you're strongly against it, they will bring in more traditional Christian topics to gain your trust again before bringing those topics in again." Exclusive to Shincheonji is the belief that Lee is a messenger sent by Jesus and that he has a unique ability to correctly interpret the Book of Revelation. "They are manipulating people, but they just say that is how to bring the person into God," she says. Gloria says when things didn't quite add up, further detail was always promised, but rarely delivered. "I did have a lot of questions, but the teacher would always say: 'Oh, we'll talk about that topic in the next topic', and obviously I'd forget about it by then," she says. Bearing 'fruit' Gloria did not realise at the time, but many of her interactions with people at her Bible study group were controlled and orchestrated in what she now believes was a form of psychological manipulation. More than half of those attending the classes were confirmed members of Shincheonji, but they did not disclose their affiliation at the time. Shincheonji members are referred to as 'leaves' and tasked with recruiting new members — or 'fruits'. The leaves are instructed to learn as much about their potential recruit as possible, including their strengths and weaknesses — information they then use to help bring them into the fold. In a video posted to YouTube in 2022 by the group, a presenter explains that "the leaf is an evangelist who spreads the word of life". Gloria may not have been familiar with the recruitment process when she was targeted as a 'fruit', but she soon learnt how existing members would minimise interactions between new recruits to control narratives. "Each fruit has one to two leaves, sometimes three, but it's pretty rare," she explains. "Imagine that there is a row of seeds, so the fruits will be sitting in the middle while the leaf will be sitting on their right and the left side of the fruit, so that the fruit that's in the middle won't be talking to another fruit on the other side of the seed. "The leaf will always follow the fruit wherever they go inside that classroom to make sure that the fruit doesn't talk to another fruit." Sometimes it could be even creepier, and they follow them to the toilet. The group uses Bible verses to back this figurative theory of growing trees when teaching their members. Within the group, members are referred to as "trees of life" who are meant to spread Shincheonji beliefs or knowledge referred to as the "word of life". Attaining this knowledge is framed as imperative for salvation and used by Shincheonji to separate its followers from the general population, who are believed to have a lack of knowledge. The group emphasises that only those who receive this 'revealed word' will be saved and attain heaven — one of the reasons it is sometimes referred to as a doomsday cult. So followers like Gloria initially feel they are sharing God's true teaching and doing good by bringing more people to the sect. From 'education' to 'indoctrination' Like other members of Shincheonji, Gloria was encouraged not to spend time with her friends outside of the group, as anyone with differing beliefs was framed as being "dead in spirit". "They would say they belong to the dead, you're not supposed to hang out with them so much, because they believe the dead people cannot be together with people who are alive," she says. Members are kept busy by the group, attending Bible study and evangelising others, which they are told will help them serve God and ultimately attain heaven. At the peak of her involvement, Gloria says she was committing 12 hours a day, almost every day, to the group. She would wake up at 5am or 6am each day to get to the first session. "You cannot be late to that 7am meeting. If you are late, you get scolded, you get public humiliation, you get shouted at in front of all the other members," she says. Gloria says members would tolerate this behaviour, believing the teachings that had been drilled into them. At the time, she felt she was showing her commitment to her faith, by taking part in what she calls "educations". Today, she calls it "indoctrination". Renee Spencer, a therapist who specialises in providing counselling to those who have experienced coercive control, describes this as "dictating daily tasks". "If you've got someone who is busy all day, then they don't have time to stop and question things, especially when you couple that with other behaviours such as controlling information," she says. Turning her back on the cult After two years, Gloria started to feel unhappy in the group. When she tried to express her feelings, she says she was encouraged to suppress them and continue on with the group. "I was feeling pressured, they encourage inside the group that you can't share any negative feelings, any negative comments or anything like that. They say that if you show it, then you're not overcoming yourself," she says. She started noticing things going on behind the scenes that made her uneasy, and started thinking more critically about how Shincheonji operates. "I noticed how members were not being treated well," Gloria says. "I started to see how, when members who had been there for three or four years, who started to get sick from working so much for SCJ, and then they had to take time off, they weren't cared for." Those people were made to feel like they were just thrown out like trash, like they no longer served a purpose. She says that's when her faith in the group's teachings began to falter. "[I] started to think that if it's the kingdom of God, if it was the place where God is, why are our people not being treated well?" How do you define a cult? Gloria finally left Shincheonji in 2024 after four and a half years. Looking back, she still finds it surprising that she got caught up with the group, but says the lack of knowledge about cults and how to identify them likely contributed to that. "In the world, we don't have that much of an education on [what] does a cult look like," she says. "Because people see being in cults based on what they see in the movies, like an upside-down cross ... but the real cult itself looks like a normal church." In Australia, there is no clear-cut legal definition that separates a cult from other similar religious entities, including 'sects' or 'new religious movements'. However, the Victorian inquiry has said it will focus on "groups that use manipulative or controlling tactics to dominate members". A public hearing last month heard from former members of the Geelong Revival Centre, a Pentecostal doomsday church. Spencer, whose drive to educate people about cults came after her daughter became involved in what is believed to be a cult, has created an evaluation tool to help people to identify cult-like characteristics within groups. Her system assesses groups based on 12 key criteria, from authoritative leadership to "us versus them" mentality, and provides a score to measure whether the group's influence is healthy or harmful and to what extent. The model draws on behaviours identified in the federal government's report on coercive control in domestic and family violence as a basis for the criteria. While Spencer's focus is on education and support, she says the tool could be used by authorities to identify groups using harmful and coercive practices, such as cults and religious sects. The Victorian inquiry will also consider whether the techniques used by these groups amount to criminal coercion. Ella George, the chair of the Victorian Legislative Assembly Legal and Social Issues Committee, which is overseeing the inquiry, says there is legitimate concern about whether the techniques groups such as Shincheonji are using would "amount to coercion that should be criminalised". NSW and Queensland have recently criminalised coercive control through specific legislation; however, this is limited to domestic relationships. Former federal attorney-general Mark Dreyfus, in his response to a petition mentioning Shincheonji and calling for the government to legislate against coercive control by any organisation, has said this is "a matter for individual state and territory governments". National principles on coercive control, which were created in collaboration with the federal government to establish "a shared national understanding of coercive control", are also specific to family and domestic violence contexts. Inquiry's public hearings to begin Gloria expects Shincheonji to come under the spotlight as part of the upcoming inquiry. She set up a support group for ex-members of Shincheonji in Australia last year, which has brought her in contact with about 70 former members in Melbourne and around a dozen each in Canberra, Sydney and Perth. Gloria says the group's influence extends far beyond Victoria. Gloria hopes the inquiry will force groups such as Shincheonji to be more transparent about their identity and motives from the outset. "That is coercive if you do not tell people what sort of organisation you are from in the beginning when recruiting someone," she says. Members surveying people on the street is just one of the methods Gloria says the group employs to recruit new members. She says the group has many "front groups", the most prominent being one that operates as a charity doing community service work, and that members of Shincheonji are constantly holding social events with different interest groups, using different aliases. SBS News is aware of singing groups, art exhibitions and K-pop-inspired events that have all been used as social gatherings to provide opportunities for group members to ingratiate themselves with new and potential recruits. Gloria says members may use such events to 'love-bomb' recruits — meaning to shower them with praise and form close connections with them. Love-bombing is one of the more commonly known tactics used by cults to recruit members, which the inquiry has suggested it will investigate via its submissions. Gloria says while she did not realise it at the time, the Shincheonji 'leaves' used this technique on her when she was introduced to the group by overwhelming her with affection, praise and attention to create emotional bonds. SBS News contacted Shincheonji's Melbourne chapter for comment but did not receive a response. Public hearings as part of the Victorian inquiry began last week, with a final report due no later than 30 September 2026.
