Melissa Caddick's parents make offer to duped investors

·2-min read

The parents of deceased fraudster Melissa Caddick have made an offer to resolve a dispute with duped investors regarding who gets what from the sale of a multi-million dollar property in Sydney's east.

Ted and Barbara Grimley have proposed a sum be taken out of funds gathered by receivers appointed over Caddicks' property in exchange for the sale of an apartment in Edgecliff which has previously been the subject of heated disagreement.

Investors have claimed they are owed all money from the sale of the property while the Grimleys have battled for their own cut of the proceeds.

The couple claim they paid their now-deceased daughter almost $1.2 million as partial payment for the apartment's purchase on the condition they would live there rent-free until they died.

On Friday in the Federal Court, the receivers urged investors to agree to the Grimleys' "open offer".

"The (out of pocket investors) will not get a materially better return in the event that these proceedings are judicially determined in their favour," said barrister Vanessa Whittaker SC.

The Grimleys' barrister Robert Newlinds SC threw his support behind the suggestion.

"Of course we think it's a good idea. We will be supportive of it," he told Justice Brigette Markovic.

The exact amount proposed by Caddick's parents has not been revealed but Ms Whittaker said even if the investors won in the best case scenario in court, the amount taken out by legal fees would leave them worse off than if they had simply accepted the offer.

The receivers will circulate material backing their position and will hold town hall meetings with investors before a hearing on May 31.

Investors will have the chance to raise objections to the proposal by May 24.

They will also still be able to sue the Grimleys using their own funds even if the offer is accepted.

At a later date, the court will also have to deal with a claim by Caddick's husband Anthony Koletti over some of his wife's property.

Caddick told her victims she would invest their cash, but instead created false CommSec trading accounts and faked trading documents showing profits.

She preyed mostly on her friends and family between 2013 and 2020, taking $23 million through the Ponzi scheme.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission and the Australian Federal Police jointly raided Caddick's eastern suburbs home on November 11, 2020.

Mr Koletti reported his 49-year-old wife missing two days later.

Three months after that, her decomposing severed foot washed up in a sports shoe on the far south coast of NSW.