{"id":784720,"date":"2026-07-07T12:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T12:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/784720\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T12:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T12:04:10","slug":"sam-monkivitch-lawyer-accused-of-dine-and-dash-spree-allegedly-up-to-his-old-tricks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/784720\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Monkivitch: Lawyer accused of dine-and-dash spree allegedly up to his old tricks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifty-year-old Australian lawyer Sam Monkivitch is known as \u201cSlippery Sam\u201d.<\/p>\n

Fresh out of a Hong Kong prison, Monkivitch is back in Melbourne and targeting small businesses.<\/p>\n

\"Fifty-year-old<\/p>\n

A Current Affair caught up with lawyer Sam Monkivitch on the streets of Melbourne.\u00a0A Current Affair<\/p>\n

In June, he was detained by Hong Kong police and accused of dining and dashing at several high-end restaurants.<\/p>\n

Monkivitch was found guilty and fined by a Hong Kong court; his wild antics made headlines around the world.<\/p>\n

Now back home, \u201cSlippery Sam\u201d has struck again and an inner-city salon was his target.<\/p>\n

The owner, Vanessa, said: \u201cHe told me his name and his whole story of how he\u2019d been arrested in Hong Kong for scamming restaurants and not paying. He showed me the article. He\u2019s carrying it around with him, boasting about it. He\u2019s proud of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I was cutting his hair, he noticed I had a beer fridge. So he asked if he could have a beer and this was at 10.30 in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vanessa says things got hairy when it was time to pay.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was like, \u2018No, I\u2019ll go and get your cash. Go to the bank, get the cash, come back\u2019. And he\u2019s like, \u2018I\u2019ll be back in 20 minutes\u2019. And I\u2019m thinking, \u2018What takes 20 minutes?\u2019 Like, it\u2019s literally two doors down.\u201d<\/p>\n

True to his name, Slippery Sam vanished and never returned. He even left a bag of wet, smelly clothes behind.<\/p>\n

A week after the unpaid haircut, an A Current Affair crew visited Monkivitch to ask where Vanessa\u2019s money was.<\/p>\n

While he seemingly wasn\u2019t home, he may have been watching via his security cameras.<\/p>\n

Less than two hours after the crew visited his house, Monkivitch returned to Vanessa\u2019s salon and finally coughed up the money he owed.<\/p>\n

We later caught up with Slippery Sam just around the corner.<\/p>\n

He refused to answer our questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you plan to slip out on businesses here in Melbourne like you did in Hong Kong, Sam?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you slipping away, Sam?\u201d<\/p>\n

Monkivitch may have finally settled his bill this time, but other local businesses should remain on high alert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fifty-year-old Australian lawyer Sam Monkivitch is known as \u201cSlippery Sam\u201d. Fresh out of a Hong Kong prison, Monkivitch…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-784720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}