Inside story of the bikie lawyer’s wife and the missing millions

The wife of a prominent bikie lawyer has faced claims she used someone else’s money to pay for her sons’ Kew private school fees and a trip to Vanuatu.

Clare Voitin, wife of prominent bikie lawyer John Voitin, has been accused in the County Court of knowingly receiving money belonging to her husband's client.

The wife of a prominent bikie lawyer has been embroiled in a bitter legal battle over accusations that she benefited from $2 million of someone else’s money.

Clare Voitin — self described ideas guru, gin producer, food gardener and author — stepped into the virtual courtroom after her husband’s client accused her of knowingly receiving his millions.

The long-running County Court fight was the latest strike of bad luck for the foodie with a paddock to plate ethos and her husband, John — a lawyer whose client list has included Comanchero bikie boss Mick Murray.

The Voitins, part of the inner-eastern suburbs private school set, are understood to have recently gone to ground following a particularly “tempestuous decade”, as noted by a County Court judge.

Clare Voitin.

Her husband John Voitin.

Just last year, John Voitin copped gunshot wounds to the legs in the driveway of his Kew home.

It came as he faced criminal charges over a money laundering scheme allegedly involving the Comancheros after bikie cops raided his Stanton Grant Legal firm.

There had been “bankruptcy, actions by the legal profession authorities, arson, attacks on Mrs Voitin’s farm and the family vehicle”, Justice Michael Macnamara said, in a judgement handed down this month.

“Theirs must be a very strong marriage,” he said.

And it was that strength in their marriage that made it “difficult or impossible to credit” that Mrs Voitin wouldn't know about the business transactions her husband was making.

“If she were as ignorant of all these matters as she professes, it could only be by dint of “Nelsonian” blindness,” Justice Macnamara said.

The Kew home where lawyer John Voitin was shot. Picture: Alex Coppel.

Therefore, it seemed odd that money from Reubal Beiruti — a gym operator, property developer and her husband’s client — had appeared in her accounts without her knowledge.

Mrs Voitin, the producer of Heathcote Gin, told the judge the pattern through her marriage was that when she needed money, her husband would top up her bank accounts up to $80,000 a year.

But the court found within two months of 2016, the former legal secretary received at least $170,000 of Mr Beiruti’s cash.

Mr Beiruti didn’t know Mrs Voitin personally.

Yet within a few years of their first encounter, he’d accuse his lawyer’s wife of spending his money on lavish trips to Vanuatu, school fees for her sons to attend the elite Xavier College, lingerie, gym memberships and upkeep for horses and sheep.

The former panel beater claimed he first met Mrs Voitin outside her Providore Cafe, on Deepdene’s Whitehorse Rd — though Mrs Voitin says it never happened.

Clare Voitin is a self described ideas guru, gin producer, food gardener and author.

An “anxious” Mr Beiruti said he’d been driving his daughter back from her birthday dinner in September 2016 when he spotted Mr Voitin’s white Toyota LandCruiser parked out front — even though the court found that car hadn’t been manufactured then.

He’d been trying to get onto his lawyer, calling his phone and office, but claimed he “kept avoiding me”.

So when he says he spotted the couple sitting in the cafe’s front window, he decided to take the “unusual action” of “collaring” Mr Voitin.

He wanted to know where his money was — months earlier, Mr Beiruti transferred $3.245 million to Mr Voitin from a property settlement after splitting with his wife.

His lawyer said it would be invested in first mortgages, for interest of up to 12 per cent.

“This is Ruby,” Mr Voitin said to his wife, according to the gym owner, when he approached them at the cafe.

“He’s a client of mine. He’s looking for a property in the area.”

But according to Mr Beiruti, he was having nothing of it.

“John, why have you been avoiding me?” he says he asked.

After a pause, he said Mr Voitin replied, “There’s been a few minor issues but the good news is a few (mortgages) have settled and there’ll be a million in the trust account on Monday.”

“I’ll look you in the eyes, you’ll have your money on Monday, give me a call.”

Lawyer John Voitin.

Mr Voitin has represented Comanchero bikie boss Mick Murray. Picture: Ian Currie

But Monday came and went and Mr Beiruti claims the money never lobbed in the account of his GP Buildings Holdings business.

Two years and another cafe confrontation later, the gym owner filed a suit against Mr Voitin in court.

But that didn’t stop him from trying to chase up the man in person.

A desperate Mr Beiruti says he sat off Mrs Voitin’s Bellarine Peninsula farm in 2019 — the same farm that was torched in a suspicious blaze in July that same year.

He was hoping to see his lawyer, and sped up to a departing Toyota LandCruiser to find Mrs Voitin inside.

“Where’s John … he owes me money,” he said he called out to Mrs Voitin.

“Ruby, this is not a time and a place for this. I’ve got kids in the car,” came the reply.

Mr Beiruti says he fired back: “Well, I don’t really care who you’ve got in the car. You’ve taken food off my kids’ table. Youse are thieves.”

Mrs Voitin’s version went that Mr Beiruti sat off the property for hours and confronted her as her son closed the gate.

She testified she was “absolutely terrified”.

Less than a year after that exchange, a Supreme Court judge awarded Mr Beiruti his entire $3.245 million from Mr Voitin, who was later bankrupted.

Then months later, in October of 2020, he filed against Mrs Voitin, claiming her husband had transferred almost $2 million of his “misappropriated funds” to pay for “travel expenses, school fees, entertainment” and to business accounts she controlled.

Mr Beiruti called for $1.5 million in compensation for “knowing receipt” of misappropriated funds by Mrs Voitin.

But the ideas guru made no admissions.

She was cross examined “up hill and down dale” and “showed herself astute and skilful, and admitted and conceded very little”, Justice Macmamara said.

While the judge found she did misappropriate about $170,000 of the gym owner’s money over two months in 2016, his case was thrown out.

Giving appropriate weight to the presumption of innocence, Justice Macnamara couldn’t reject Mrs Voitin’s explanation.

It was “difficult to credit” that the husband and wife “who seem to have stuck together through thick and thin” wouldn't know how much income the other was deriving.

And it was a “less than compelling” explanation that the money that lobbed in Mrs Voitin’s bank accounts simply followed a pattern of appearing cash through their marriage.

Even though the judge had “reservations as to Mrs Voitin’s credibility”, he found Mr Beiruti’s case lacked evidence that she knowingly received his money and dismissed the matter earlier this month.

Mrs Voitin’s lawyer, Dermot Connors, said his client “found it bizarre she was being held to account for her husband’s debts and liabilities”.

“It was medieval, to be honest,” he said.

But it’s not the end of the case — Mr Beiruti and his GP Buildings Holdings are appealing the judgment, with papers to be filed this week.

It won’t be the last time the Voitin’s face court.

The pair are due to face Melbourne Magistrates’ Court later this year on charges of dishonesty, among others.

The tempestuous times continue.