Melbourne man Damien Carew accused of attempting to murder wife in Monaco
With a Monaco villa and glamorous wife, Damien Carew was living the life he had longed for since his days at St Kevin’s College. Now he’s languishing in jail.
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Ten years ago, Damien Carew was living the life he had longed for since his school days at St Kevin’s College.
The socially and financially ambitious Melbourne real estate agent was standing at the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild, an Italian Renaissance inspired palazzo at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, the tiny finger of rock that thrusts out suggestively into the Mediterranean on the French Riviera.
Dressed in a white tux, with his trademark long brown locks swept back in a ponytail, Carew was marrying his wealthy Russia-born bride Anna Polianskaya.
All the “right people” from Melbourne society had been invited. His brother Justin, or Juzzy, was best man and now Village Roadshow CEO, Clark Kirby, was a groomsman.
Guests, who included high-flying, Porsche-driving, Sydney real estate agent Alexander Phillips, would later recover from the swish, spare-no-expense nuptials at La Paloma on the Cote d’Azur.
It was the same venue where Australia’s once richest man, James Packer, also recovered from his wedding to bride number two Erica Baxter.
On Wednesday, Carew was arrested for the suspected murder attempt of his Russian-born wife.
A court in the South of France heard emergency services personnel were called by Carew to the couple’s grand, rented villa in La Turbie, just north of the wealthy city-state of Monaco, to find Polianskaya-Carew unconscious.
The 43-year-old remains in custody after he was refused bail, as police continue their investigation on charges for attempted aggravated murder and intentional violence.
Carew’s 33-year-old wife remains in a coma, with the couple’s two young children in the care of her family who live nearby.
His arrest caps off a dramatic fall from grace.
Celebrated author Somerset Maugham famously described Monaco on the French Riviera as “a sunny place for shady people.”
Carew’s private school friends came up with another quote, this one from financial tycoon Warren Buffett, to describe the ambitious real estate agent: “Nobody wants to get rich slow.”
“He was always ambitious socially and financially. He wanted to get rich quick,” said one friend who had not seen him since in their twenties when they would hang out in another rich seaside town, Victoria’s Portsea, where the Carew family now reside.
Another described Carew as more of a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
“He was the most generous family man but he had two sides,” said one friend who had known him since year 10, when attending elite private boys school St Kevin’s College.
“He was a bit of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde I guess. Kind, lovely and caring. He would call you on your birthday every year and set up WhatsApp groups to share family photos,” they said.
“He was a very caring kind of guy. But he also had a side that was always a bit sketchy too.”
That sketchy side caught up with Carew during the Covid years when he was arrested and jailed on charges of money laundering in Monaco.
Carew had quickly moved in his twenties from the shifting sands of Portsea and Melbourne to selling sunsets in flashy Sydney and then onto the expat life in Dubai.
It was living in Monaco with his now wife and two children when he was arrested for money laundering.
According to local news outlets from Monaco, Carew had recently spent several months in prison and had been under “judicial control” in relation to the money-laundering case.
Back home, his friends said any news of Carew’s money laundering arrest was spoken within society circles over Aperols at Sorrento estates, in hushed tones.
“No one really knew when he went to jail back here in Australia, it was Covid and it was all pretty hush hush,” they said.
“Again no one really knows the money laundering details. Even his wife Anna was very sheepish about it all at the time.”
Wife Polianskaya-Carew, now lies unconscious and in a coma in a local hospital.
Her Linked In profile states she worked as a brand manager at the Stardust boutique in Monaco’s luxurious Hotel de Paris, overseeing the diamond displays of jeweller Ibrahim Zein.
Carew was presented to an investigating judge on Thursday, with a Parisian lawyer assisting him.
The court heard that Carew’s company, BCR International, listed at the fifth floor of 17 avenue de l’Annonciade in Monaco, has been placed into compulsory liquidation.
Carew and his wife were previously directors of Sterling Estates International, a real estate company in Baker Street London that was dissolved in 2021.
The Monaco-Matin newspaper stated the prosecutor’s office requested remand for the purposes of the investigation with “imprisonment justified by the fact that Damien C. is currently under judicial supervision in the context of an aggravated money laundering case.
“The offence has already earned him a few months in prison and would have placed the couple in a delicate financial situation,” the newspaper reported.
Friends close to the couple say whispers of alcohol and substance abuse issues had been worrying them in recent times.
The newspaper ended its report saying “excessive alcohol consumption also seems to have played a major role in this outburst of violence.”
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