The family of a young lawyer fatally mowed down on a weekend morning will not get justice over the tragedy after the driver allegedly behind the wheel died.
Rideshare driver Zisi Kokotatsios had been accused of illegally using his phone when going to collect a passenger about 4am on March 17, 2024.
He allegedly ran over 28-year-old lawyer Mitch East while driving through Tamarama in Sydney‘s east and failing to stop to help.
Emergency services were called and attempted to revive Mr East but he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Kokotatsios was expected to go to trial after pleading not guilty to dangerous driving occasioning death, and failing to stop and assist after a vehicle impact causing death.
On Friday, Downing Centre District Court was told the 65-year-old had passed away.
The criminal charges against him – which included two backup charges of negligent driving occasioning death and illegally using a mobile phone while driving – have been withdrawn and the case dismissed.
He died on November 11 with a funeral held at Rookwood Cemetery later that month, according to an online death notice.
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Young lawyer Mitch East, 27, was killed when he was allegedly ran over by Zisi Kokotatsios about 4am on March 17, 2024
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Zisi Kokotatsios – an Uber driver and real estate worker – died on November 11 with a funeral held at Rookwood Cemetery later that month, according to an online death notice
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Kokotatsios’s criminal matter experienced numerous delays after his arrest in March 2024.
He eventually pleaded not guilty at the Downing Centre Local Court about 16 months later.
A trial set for August was set but then postponed. A new trial date was yet to be locked in.
His alleged victim Mr East graduated from Harvard Law School in 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.
At the time of his death, he worked at Sydney law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler after beginning his legal career in his native New Zealand.
An email to the firm’s staff following his death described Mr East as a highly talented lawyer, and a popular and valued member of the firm, whose loss would be deeply felt.
Shortly after his death Mr East’s mother told media the loss of her only child was ‘unbearable’.
‘He was my only child, my reason for living,’ she told the New Zealand publication, Stuff.
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East was a former Harvard Law Student and was understood to have been dropped off by an Uber just moments before he was allegedly struck
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East’s death sparks a massive manhunt in Sydney’s eastern suburbs. This is a police issued image of a white Subaru Outback from the night in question
‘I died when he did. The pain is unbearable. So I just can’t think straight to talk sorry.’
She described her son as a ‘a good person with a good heart’.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Kokotatsios worked in an array of industries – from hospitality to engineering.
He worked as a Qantas engineer between 1989 and 2014, but within that time he also appeared to run a his own businesses as a mortgage broker and sold monitoring systems for goods in transit.
After leaving Qantas, he became the owner of a coffee and tea distribution business, Gourmet Coffee King, before he moved into the travel industry in 2016 as an ‘innovator’ for Innovators Travel Network.
Kokotatsios then became a marketing director in 2017 for another company he appeared to own, before he became the senior director for a property company in 2021.
