Gold Coast developer in bitter family feud over super cash

A GOLD Coast developer is embroiled in a bitter family feud involving stunning allegations of a mafia bashing, death threats and “suspicious” multimillion dollar property deals.

Robert Badalotti’s $4.1m Hedges Ave mansion.

AN ITALIAN-BORN Gold Coast developer is embroiled in a bitter family feud involving stunning Supreme Court allegations of a mafia bashing, death threats and “suspicious” multimillion dollar property deals.

Robert Badalotti, 62, who has a mansion on the Coast’s “Millionaires’ Row” at Mermaid Beach and last month unveiled plans to build the southern hemisphere’s tallest building – a 108-level super-tower in Southport – has been taken to court by his estranged 66-year-old sister Ivana in a bitter battle for cash from their family super fund.

Vitriolic emails and texts filed as part of the court action reveal the siblings cursing each other, with Ivana speaking Italian to call her younger brother a “despicable worm”, a “prick born, raised and baptised” and a “piece of s..t”.

In one email, Ivana alleged “Roberto” fled the mafia in Italy, leaving her to be bashed by the mob and left naked “for hours” in the street with her children inside their house.

Robert Badalotti.

Ivana Badalotti.

“Shame on you when the mafia came to my house asking for money,” Ivana wrote in the email last December.

But Robert hit back, accusing Ivana of being a “mafia woman” and threatening to have him killed after he told her to live within her means.

“I don’t think of you anymore as a sister since that day you threatened to have me killed,” he wrote.

In her Supreme Court claim, Ivana says she is a retiree who relies almost solely on her entitlements from the Badalotti Superannuation fund of which she, Robert, his wife Teresa and son Fabrizio are directors.

Ivana has accused Robert of treating the self-managed super fund as his “own private company” and raiding “hundreds of thousands of dollars” without her knowledge or authorisation.

She alleges her requests for hundreds of thousands of dollars in entitlements have been rejected because of “insufficient funds” but claims $17 million was withdrawn from the fund between January and April.

In affidavits, she has pointed to possibly “suspicious transactions” including the $4.1 million purchase of Robert’s Hedges Ave mansion at Mermaid Beach from a contra company.

In response, Robert stated that he had transferred “hundreds of thousands of dollars” to his sister over the last decade “to support her lifestyle”.

In a preliminary hearing on Friday, Supreme Court judge Justice James Douglas reserved a decision on whether Ivana could sue her brother, his wife and son.