Jet-setting duo’s world comes crashing down
ON Thursday morning, the NSW Supreme Court sat to consider how many years Glitter Strip developer Michael Issakidis would spend behind bars for his role in a $68 million tax-evasion racket.
Almost 900km away, he and his wife Donrecka prepared to take their own lives at their Sovereign Islands mansion.
The well-known Gold Coast glamour couple, who met and fell in love at age 17, were renowned for their lavish lifestyle but those who knew them described Michael Issakidis’ wealth as a “front”.
The pair, in their 70s, were rushed to hospital following a failed suicide attempt about 5.15pm Thursday.
It is believed they were found unconscious in their garage with several cars running.
Earlier that day, Issakidis did not board a plane to Sydney to be sentenced after a jury convicted him of pocketing $15 million from the scheme.
Police are no longer investigating the suicide incident and the pair remain in the Gold Coast University Hospital in a stable condition.
A bench warrant was issued for Issakidis’ arrest on Thursday and he will be extradited to NSW for sentencing when he recovers.
The 73-year-old developerturned-lawyer was once considered one of the Gold Coast’s wealthiest men.
Donrecka met him in Sydney when she was about 17 years old, sources close to the couple said.
“She was standing on a street corner and he was a Greek boy driving around in Sydney when he saw her,” the source said.
“She was just so beautiful so he did a U-turn and asked her to get in and she did and they’ve been together ever since, so the story went.”
Issakidis sold up his Sydney law practice and moved to the Coast in the 1980s.
He appeared to be flush with cash and Donrecka gained a reputation for splashing it around.
Rumour has it she once chartered a plane just to go shopping in Sydney in the ’90s.
“Like so many people on the Coast, they were rich but it was all a big front,” one source said.
“Donrecka would be covered in jewellery but I never knew if it was real or not.
“Even in their house, a lot of things were fake.”
Despite this, those who knew the couple said they were “inseparable”.
“They were just so in love. They would have plotted this (the suicide pact) together,” another source said.
Issakidis and never had children.
The pair lived in a Sorrento mansion with a tennis court and a jetty when they first moved to the Coast. In 1996, they sold their Freyburg St home for $1.16 million.
Several years later, they moved into a $3.8 million, four-bedroom mansion at Sovereign Islands.
Neighbours said the pair were “very private people”.
“I’d always see Donrecka walking the dog in the street and she was always very Donrecka friendly,” a source said. “Every Sunday, Michael was out sitting on his yacht smoking a cigar, drinking a coffee and reading the paper.”
In 2010, Issakidis gave the Bulletin a tour of his multimillion-dollar car collection. He showed off his elevator-accessible garage, the same place the pair were found on Thursday.
“You need to invest in your future,” he said at the time.
Issakidis was close friends with former Wheel of Fortune host “Baby” John Burgess.
Hospitality workers remember seeing the pair at Omeros Brothers Seafood Restaurant in glitzy Marina Mirage.
“He’d always come in for lunch and dinner,” a former employee said. “So much that we knew his order.”
In 2012, Issakidis sued Burgess after a rental dispute over the former developer’s 71stfloor sub-penthouse at Q1.
A Gold Coast court ordered Burgess pay $30,000 in rental arrears and costs.
In the 1990s and the Glitter Strip property market was shot. A stream of foreign investment in apartments had moved to housing and developers were treading cautiously.
Not Issakidis, though. In 1991 he was lodging development applications in Cairns, planning a $1.3 billion resort.
But Issakidis’ boom time didn’t last. In April 2012, he was arrested at his Sovereign Islands home by Australian Federal Police and charged over a $68 million tax evasion and money laundering scheme.
The scheme involved claiming depreciation expenses against patients whose prices had been over-inflated and laundering money through overseas bank accounts in the Canary Islands.
Issakidis was this year found guilty of netting more than $15 million from the scheme.
At the time of his arrest, he had $40 million of assets seized from the waterfront home, including two yachts and several cars including four Rolls-Royces, a Lamborghini Spyder, an Aston Martin, a BMW and a Mercedes.
Soon after his arrest, Issakidis was extradited to Sydney on charges of conspiracy to deal in the proceeds of crime and conspiracy to dishonestly cause loss to the Australian Taxation Office.
He was granted bail to his Gold Coast home on a $1.5 million surety.
Issakidis was subject to two trials for the charges, spending almost $1 million on legal bills.
In 2015, a Sydney court heard he could not afford to pay his lawyer and had applied for Legal Aid.
His first trial, in 2014, was aborted after it was revealed the AFP had not disclosed documents to Issakidis’ legal team.
A second trial was held this year and Issakidis was found guilty of conspiring to cause loss to the Commonwealth and of dealing with property believed to be the proceeds of a crime.
Issakidis’ lawyer Paul McGirr yesterday told the Bulletin the situation was “very, very sad”.
Issakidis is expected to be sentenced to several years behind bars once he is extradited to NSW.
Lifeline 13 11 14