Andrew L. Urban
In the dead of night, shortly after 4am on Sunday March 17, 2024, 28 year old lawyer Mitch East is found dead, with critical head and chest injuries, lying in the middle of Fletcher St in the Sydney suburb of Tamarama. Zisi Kokotatsios, 63, is Uber-driving his ex-girlfriend’s car on the same street around the same time.
Zisi was alleged to have been illegally using his mobile phone while driving to collect a passenger, police alleged, unaware of the body lying in the road. At the bail hearing, the defence noted he continued picking up passengers after the crash because he was allegedly unaware of the collision, but no specifics about the intended passenger are in the court reporting.
From the news reporting at the time of the incident, there was no clear explanation given for why Mitch East was lying in the road. Police and the court were reported saying that he was already on the road when the vehicle hit him, but it was not known why he was in that position and no specific reasons (such as an activity or cause) were established publicly in those early reports.
It is unclear whether it was the investigation that lacked rigour or the reporting.
The late Mitch East with his girlfriend (photo Instagram/Daily Mail)
The young lawyer, who was a former Harvard Law School student, is understood to have been dropped off by another Uber just moments before he was allegedly struck and left for dead.
About four hours after the alleged incident, Kokotatsios posted a photo on social media of himself and his partner Imelda at a shopping centre.
Zisi, who was the managing director of First Impression Property Group, walked into Granville Police Station just after 11am on the Friday after the Sunday night accident, to reclaim his car, according a report on Nine News. Until then, police didn’t know who was the driver, another bizarre element of this case.
He was arrested and charged with four offences, including negligent driving occasioning death, driving while using a mobile phone, failing to stop and assist a person and dangerous driving.
His tearful ex-girlfriend, Imelda, told Nine News she was shocked and asked rhetorically, “Why did you put him in jail?”
He pleaded not guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death and failing to stop and assist after a vehicle impact causing death, with additional charges including negligent driving occasioning death and illegal mobile phone use while driving.
The late Zisi Kokotatsios (photo supplied)
According to his LinkedIn profile, Kokotatsios has worked in an array of industries – from hospitality to engineering. He worked as a Qantas engineer between 1989 and 2014, but within that time he also appeared to run his own businesses as a mortgage broker and sold monitoring systems for goods in transit.
Kokotatsios spent a night in a cell on remand before returning to his Bankstown home on Saturday, where he relied on the charity of his neighbours, after his family abandoned him.
Zisi had his arraignment on Friday November 14, and on Tuesday November 18 they were going to set the trial date, but, Zisi was found dead on Sunday November 16. His housemate hadn’t seen him all day Saturday, so, he went to check up on him on the Sunday and found him dead. So, his official date of death was the Sunday, but, it’s possible he died on Saturday. Either way he was dead within 1-2 days after his arraignment. Zisi died in legal limbo, still untried, assumed innocent but smeared by circumstance.
Zisi was diabetic and it seems he purposely wasn’t taking his diabetes pills. Apparently, he was sleeping in to 1 and 2 pm regularly and the ex-partner had been calling him regularly to check whether he was taking his diabetes tablets, and Zisi would tell her he wasn’t.
So, while we don’t know what happened the weekend he died, one source thinks that he felt alone, abandoned by family, depressed and he might have decided not to take his diabetes pills so that he would end his life.
It seems also that the reason he was sleeping in and was share housing is because he wasn’t able to work anymore. For a start the SUV that he was using to work as an Uber driver had been taken away as forensic evidence and it wasn’t released until 22 months later, well after his death.
My sources say that Zisi always insisted that he didn’t know he had hit a person. He said that if he had known he would have stopped. Could Mitch have been dead before he was hit by the SUV Zisi was driving – if indeed it was what happened?
The media had no doubts, The Daily Mail reporting that Mitch was “killed” by Zisi (not “allegedly killed”). Perhaps their certainty was unjustified?