Theodoros Tsalkos guilty of posing as cop during St Kilda rapes

A taxi-driver who posed as an undercover cop to rape two St Kilda teenagers has been brought to justice more than 30 years after his crimes.

Theodoros Tsalkos was found guilty of rape and kidnapping. Picture: Josie Hayden

A man who posed as an undercover cop to rape two teenage girls in a historic St Kilda attack had kidnapped another woman while driving a taxi just months earlier.

Theodoros Tsalkos, 61, was found guilty by a jury after DNA exposed him as the rapist who assaulted two vulnerable girls, aged 15 and 16, while pretending to be a “corrupt policeman”, on May 7, 1987.

The County Court heard on Tuesday the girls had days earlier begun a “brief foray” into sex work when the then-25-year-old man picked them up and threatened to “blow heads off” during a four-hour assault across Elwood and Balaclava.

The court was told that just 10 months earlier, Tsalkos was driving a taxi when he abducted a customer who wanted to be driven home to Northcote, in July, 1986.

She escaped when she managed to bite his tongue as he kissed her, causing an injury that he sought stitches for in hospital.

But the court heard the taxi kidnapping couldn’t be relied upon as a prior conviction in sentencing Tsalkos over the St Kilda rapes.

Theodoros Tsalkos was 25 when he raped the teens. Picture: Josie Hayden

Tsalkos pretended to be a “corrupt policeman”. Picture: Josie Hayden

Barrister Andrew Grant, for the prosecution, said that was because even though he’d been charged over the taxi matter when he abducted the two girls, he wasn’t found guilty until two years later, where he was handed a three-month jail term.

But Judge Rosemary Carlin said it was relevant to his moral culpability.

The court heard Tsalkos was “opportunistic” when he threatened the two girls with arrest and charges of prostitution after they approached him while driving in St Kilda.

One victim, then 16, told the court she believed “we’re not going to survive the night, we’re not going home” as the rapist took them to isolated locations to assault them under the cover of darkness, at the canal in Elwood and a toilet block in Balaclava.

She said 35 years on, she still hasn’t healed from his “sick, sadistic game”.

“Most people get to move on from the mistakes they made in their teenage years – because of you, I’ve never been able to,” she said.

“I forgive myself, I will never forgive you.”

The other victim, then aged 15, has since died of a rare illness.

Her daughter told the court she was devastated and frustrated that her mother “couldn’t see justice with her own eyes”.

Judge Carlin found Tsalkos had lied to the court during a 7-day trial last year, where he told a jury an “elaborate story” and blamed the girls for trying to steal his wallet.

He wasn’t charged until 2020 after cold case DNA swabs – taken from the girls at the time and frozen – were matched to Tsalkos, who was a person of interest.

A jury found him guilty of two counts of rape, two counts of kidnapping and four counts of gross indecency with a person under the age of 16.

Defence barrister Sai Ranjit told the court the man being sentenced now was “a different man” to three decades ago when he committed the crimes.

He said the permanent resident faced the prospect of having his visa cancelled and being sent back to Greece, where he has “zero ties” and hadn’t lived since a child.

Mr Ranjit asked Judge Carlin to give his client the “benefit of the doubt” that he was not a risk to the community due to the passage of time, stating he hadn’t committed further offending.

Judge Carlin will sentence Tsalkos at a later date.