Beijing: On March 23, Australian lawyer Samuel Monkivitch sat down at a Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay and tucked into a feast of soya sauce prawns, a whole fish, white rice and a beer.
Then he got up and left, walking out on a bill of $HK639.10 ($117).
That might have been the end of it had a bystander not chased Monkivitch down the street, yelling “this foreigner doesn’t pay for his meal” and filming him as he stormed away.
“Mate, do you want your head smashed in?” Monkivitch threatened , his baseball cap slung backwards on his head, as he stepped towards the man before slapping his hand and striding off.
The video would take off on Hong Kong social media, captioned with the warning: “Wanted! Dine and dasher. Attack me when he escape [sic]. Shameless.”
It marked the beginning of Monkivitch’s downfall – he was briefly jailed and fined for a dine-and-dash spree across Hong Kong targeting five restaurants and a massage parlour.
Hong Kongers posted footage in online forums of him arguing with staff in the street about payment, and of citizens’ arrests. It was met with a mix of scorn and mockery as people mused about why a lawyer couldn’t afford to pay for a succulent Chinese meal.
But unpaid restaurant bills were a mere side story to far more serious allegations of manipulation and misappropriation that were unfolding back in Monkivitch’s home town of Melbourne.
In the working-class suburb of Sunshine, 21-year-old Charlie Nemet had entrusted Monkivitch to manage her late father George’s estate – an inheritance of $372,507.37.
His superannuation from years of hard work as a bricklayer was supposed to set up Charlie and her teenage sister, Ruby, for a life without their parents, who had died within months of each other a few years earlier.
But the bank account Monkivitch had advised her to put the money in – and which he had joint access to – now had just 20¢ in it.
He had transferred about $300,000 over 149 transactions into his personal bank account between February 2025 and February 2026, while claiming he was using the funds to pay legal fees and for unsubstantiated investments.
“The money that my dad worked so hard for in his life is probably all gone. He’s taken it,” Charlie alleges from her home, after spending weeks gathering evidence to report to the police.
She reached this conclusion after watching the video of Monkivitch fleeing the Pak Loh Chiu Chow Restaurant that day in March.
By then, Monkivitch had been difficult to contact for weeks. She wanted him to release some of their inheritance so Ruby could buy a car. When she heard from a friend he was in jail in Hong Kong, she Googled him and discovered a Reddit thread documenting his dine-and-dash spree.
“I was processing everything. Everything he had told me. That he was going to help me. I was just like, ‘Holy shit; I’ve been played’,” she says.
Asked directly by this masthead whether he conned Charlie and Ruby Nemet out of their inheritance, Monkivitch said: “The simple answer is, of course not.
“There’s some very, very distorted truth,” he said, stating he was the target of a character assassination.
Pressed about the money’s whereabouts and for proof that it had been invested, he said the situation was a “personal legal matter”.
“There’s no version of events to provide you. I have a confidential position,” he said before hanging up. He declined to respond to further questions in writing.
This masthead has combed through bank statements, trust documents and invoices, as well as emails and messages between the Nemets and Monkivitch.
The evidence trail gives rise to serious allegations– painting a picture of an egregious abuse of the lawyer-client relationship and basic fiduciary duties – including extensive billing without proper invoicing, improper invoicing when billing did occur, disastrous and conflicted legal advice, unsubstantiated investments, and the apparent commingling of trust money with personal finances.
In gaining access to the Nemet sisters’ money, Monkivitch could exert control over their financial independence, a dynamic made more inappropriate by the fact he was a 50-year-old man purporting to help young, vulnerable women.
Last month, fresh out of jail in Hong Kong, Monkivitch sent the sisters a written report containing allegedly misleading and unsubstantiated claims about where their money had gone.
As Charlie has attempted to chase her money by contacting the firms Monkivitch claims to have paid using inheritance funds, he has grown increasingly aggressive in response.
“Do NOT interact with any of the firms or institutions that I mentioned in my correspondence to you and Ruby: that is foolish,” he wrote in a WhatsApp message to her on July 3.
Repeating her request last week for evidence that whatever’s left of the inheritance is sitting in a Hong Kong bank account as Monkivitch had said, Charlie wrote: “As stated, I would like to see the letter before we speak.” He replied: “You don’t state.”
Monkivitch’s conduct is the subject of three separate complaints to the Victorian Legal Services Board, including one from the Nemets. Until June 30, he was a practising lawyer, a registration he has been unable to renew.
The board would not comment on whether an investigation was under way, but a spokesperson confirmed he no longer held a practising certificate.
“This means he must not engage in legal practice or advertise, represent, state or imply that he can do so,” a spokesperson said.
This masthead does not suggest Monkivitch has continued to practise as a lawyer since June 30.
The perfect marks
As Charlie and Ruby were trying to make ends meet in Melbourne by working shifts at Coles, Monkivitch was on his dine-and-dash tear across Hong Kong.
Around midnight on April 24, he popped in to Canteen, a bistro in Hong Kong’s central district, and ordered the barramundi and two beers. When it came time to settle the $HK284 bill, he told waitstaff he needed to withdraw money from a nearby ATM, court documents show. Once out the door, he fled.
A day earlier, Charlie had sent him a panicked email requesting a full accounting of all fees, investments and spending related to their inheritance, and asking for the remaining money to be deposited into Ruby’s bank account.
“We have asked for our money several times,” Charlie wrote on April 23. “Not being able to release our own money for Ruby’s [birthday] or a car, has caused us confusion and extreme worry.
“We hope you are OK and hope you can provide all these documents or at least return the money we were left by our dad to Ruby’s bank account ASAP.”
Monkivitch responded the afternoon after his midnight barramundi dash, emailing a letter labelled “strictly private and confidential” and designed to look like professional legal communication. It contained a dismissive, unprofessional response.
“I appreciate that Ruby ‘needs’ a car, but does she, really?” he wrote.
“Motor vehicles have not been good to you or for your family (trust me, sustained periods of walking will hold Rubes in a far superior position).”
It was a glib reference to serious car accidents that Charlie and her mother had separately been in, three years apart, that had required hospitalisation and surgery.
In the letter, Monkivitch said the invested money was now worth $US165,000 ($237,627), and funds were sitting in a Hong Kong HSBC bank account. Despite a WhatsApp message to Charlie since then asking which account she wanted the money returned to, he is yet to provide proof the funds are in that account, including in response to requests by this masthead.
He signed the letter, “Love you, as always”.
“There was no friendship. He was our lawyer,” Charlie says of the overly familiar tone.
Looking back, one of the questions Charlie asks herself – if what she fears is true – is whether Monkivitch had ill intentions from the outset, or whether he seemingly took advantage of an extraordinary set of circumstances as they unfurled.
“I’ll be completely honest. I’m so angry at myself, and I feel so stupid,” she says.
“How have I let this happen? But I was also going through so much. I wasn’t even able to grieve my dad, and then my mum died, and then I had to be guardian to Ruby. That was so hard, being her sole caregiver – that just created a horrible imbalance in our relationship.
“I was dealing with that, and I was working full-time, just so we had enough money to pay for stuff.”
In many ways, the Nemet children were the perfect marks. Their story is one shaped by tragedy, hardship and legal battles from a young age, which conspired to put them in a very vulnerable position.
In August 2022, their mother Zoe was severely injured in a car accident when another vehicleveered into oncoming traffic and ploughed into her car, killing her passenger. Zoe had part of her bowel removed and was bedridden for months. She never returned to her job at Coles.
When George Nemet died from a brain haemorrhage a year later in September 2023, aged 44, Charlie became her mum’s carer.
Then, just seven months on, Zoe died from heart failure, aged 49, leaving the teenagers without parents.
‘He seemed trustworthy, and honestly, I didn’t know much about him.’Charlie Nemet
Unfortunately, the Nemets also left their daughters with legal bills from Rizkallah Partners, a law firm specialising in estates that had a lengthy association with the family. At the time of their deaths, the Nemets had been locked in a bitter feud with George’s siblings over claims to the family home in Sunshine, which had originally belonged to George’s father.
That’s how Monkivitch entered their lives in April 2024 – on the recommendation of one of their mum’s friends, as someone who could help them navigate a way through the mess.
Charlie says her understanding was that Monkivitch would be offering legal advice in a largely pro bono capacity. Her grandmother and a family friend each gave him $5000 to assist with legal costs.
“I’m 1000 per cent positive I’ve never signed a cost agreement with Sam,” Charlie says, referring to the standard legal contract between lawyers and clients laying out how fees will be billed.
In the two years she knew him, she says they met in person only a handful of times, usually in Melbourne’s CBD. She says his legal advice was often given over the phone or in a WhatsApp group with her sister.
“When I first met him, he told me he lived here in Melbourne, but he travelled to Hong Kong for his job,” Charlie says.
“He seemed trustworthy, and honestly, I didn’t know much about him.”
At the time, Monkivitch was employed as an independent contractor by Hong Kong-based KorumLegal, which is not a law firm but an alternative legal services provider. His contract was terminated in October when allegations concerning his business practices came to light.
Hands-on role
Monkivitch quickly assumed a more hands-on role in the sisters’ legal affairs. Over the following months, he advised Charlie to take two consequential courses of action.
The first was to put their inheritance in a discretionary family trust, with Charlie and Ruby as joint beneficiaries and Monkivitch as the appointor. This arrangement would weaken the sisters’ control over their money from the outset.
He set up a company called Nemet Family Investments Pty Ltd to serve as trustee of the family trust, and he had himself appointed co-director alongside Charlie, with her consent.
Together, in February 2025, they opened a Commonwealth Bank account in the trustee company’s name, with joint access, for the purpose of investing the money. “He said to me: ‘Let’s put all of the money into a business transaction account. That way we can invest the money’,” Charlie says.
By now, there was $319,115.12 left in George’s estate, and Charlie authorised all of it to be transferred into this new account.
The second significant action Monkivitch advised Charlie to take was to refuse to pay outstanding legal fees to Rizkallah Partners, which would have taken a $54,000 chunk out of the inheritance.
But by refusing to pay, Charlie was sued for bankruptcy by Rizkallah Partners. Under corporations law, this meant she was disqualified from being a company director and so she was removed from her position as co-director of Nemet Family Investments, leaving Monkivitch in sole control.
As the bankruptcy process was under way in October 2025, Charlie was injured in a car accident and underwent spinal fusion surgery, requiring months of recovery. Monkivitch later said they discussed the personal implications of bankruptcy “at length” before jointly agreeing not to pay the debt.
“I’m crying on the phone to him, and he’s like, ‘it’s OK. There’s nothing to worry about’,” she says, adamant that he never advised that she would be removed as co-director as a result.
‘There’s some very, very distorted truth.’Sam Monkivitch
When the $15,245 insurance money for her written-off Kia Cerato was paid out, she put it in the trust account so Monkivitch could invest it. She withdrew money, too – about $26,000 over the year for what she says were everyday living expenses for her and Ruby.
By the time Charlie was officially declared bankrupt in November, Monkivitch had been transferring money into his personal account for months, making almost daily deposits mostly ranging from a few hundred dollars up to $5000.
As director and controller of the trustee company, he had a duty to ensure it acted in the best interests of the beneficiaries and avoided personal conflicts.
Instead, he transferred about $300,000 into his personal bank account over the course of a year, allegedly without providing invoices or proper documentation. This included about $117,000 over dozens of transfers that he variously described on bank statements as legal fees, barrister fees, filing fees or professional fees. It also included about $167,000 of deposits into his account labelled as “investments”, almost $7000 in “accountant fees”, and almost $9000 listed as “term deposit”.
Legal firms that Monkivitch said he paid using these funds have rejected his claims in writing, and some have said they have outstanding bills for work he sought on behalf of the Nemets. There was also no need for Monkivitch to pay bills by transferring money to himself first, when he could have paid directly from the trust transaction account, which is how some legitimate bills were settled.
On one occasion when he did pay a $4000 bill directly from the trust account, it appears to be for another client of his in Hong Kong.
Cornwalls, a large Melbourne law firm that employed Monkivitch in the early 2000s, said it had received the $4000 payment “on account of legal work performed for a Hong Kong client at the request of Sam Monkivitch”. The firm informed Charlie it couldn’t disclose the client’s identity due to confidentiality obligations, in an email seen by this masthead.
Monkivitch also said he placed $15,000 with Cornwalls for the Nemets to use in future estate matters. The firm told Charlie it held no money in connection with her family.
One traceable investment – $92,000 put in a two-year term deposit with the Commonwealth Bank – was unwound after only four months. Monkivitch said it needed to be put offshore and out of reach of the bankruptcy trustee, which was chasing Charlie’s debts.
He put in writing what he says he did when the money landed back in the account.
“I immediately transferred those funds to my personal ANZ bank account and in turn deposited them in my Web3 in-app trading account,” he wrote in a report to the Nemets on June 15.
“I’m crying on the phone to him, and he’s like, ‘it’s OK. There’s nothing to worry about’.”Charlie Nemet
“For tax and other strategic reasons, I invested in stablecoins,” he wrote, saying he then put the funds, along with some of his own money, in an HSBC holding account “in my name”.
The “co-mingled funds”, which he said included $154,5000 of trust money, were “immediately frozen” by HSBC under its customer due diligence processes and he would need to return to Hong Kong to gain access to it.
Dodgy invoices
Even before Monkivitch began dipping into the trust bank account, he had billed Charlie $18,825 in fees mostly associated with setting up the trust.
Between September 2024 and February 2025, he issued 10 invoices, all of which were defective. They contained no breakdown of his hourly rate, or company registration details, or itemised GST. But more importantly, Monkivitch issued them using his KorumLegal email, and referred to “our bank account” for payment.
Only one bank account was listed on the invoice – Monkivitch’s personal ANZ account. Charlie paid him using a combination of inheritance money and personal savings.
It wasn’t until October 2025 that Monkivitch’s employer, KorumLegal, became aware of his conduct, after Arkin Kaman, a partner at Rizkallah Partners, emailed the company and sounded the alarm.
In a statement, KorumLegal confirmed Monkivitch’s contract had been terminated, and it said his conduct contravened its “standards of professionalism, integrity and accountability”.
“Mr Monkivitch was never authorised to use KorumLegal’s name or email address for private client work,” a spokesperson said.
The firm has reported him to the Victorian Legal Services Board, as has Kaman.
“Mr Monkivitch’s actions – particularly in placing himself in a position of joint financial control and directorship over her inheritance – raise grave concerns about the exploitation of a vulnerable client,” Kaman wrote in a complaint lodged in September.
“At no point did I witness any steps taken by him to ensure Ms Nemet had independent advice or a clear understanding of the implications of the structures he implemented.”
Back in Melbourne, Monkivitch is showing no sign that his jail stint or pleas from the Nemets for their money have had any impact. Instead, he ran out on a bill at a hairdresser’s, appearing to go back to pay only after being approached by a reporter from A Current Affair. A Current Affair is owned by Nine Entertainment, the owner of this masthead.
Charlie doesn’t know if she and Ruby will ever get their money back, but she wants to ensure Monkivitch can’t strike again.
“I don’t want him to do it to anybody, ever again,” she says.
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
