The grandson of Crocodile Dundee star Paul Hogan lived a good life. He had a nice home, a car, a job as a carpenter and a beautiful girlfriend whom he hoped to marry.
But within a few years, Jake Paul Hogan’s life spiralled out of control and the 34-year-old became a homeless drug addict, sleeping in abandoned buildings and stealing clothes and bicycles to sell.
He lost his friends and became estranged from his family, and would cycle around for hours each day high on ice and making tearful phone calls to the few people who hadn’t abandoned him.
A former acquaintance of Jake – the son of Todd Hogan, grandson of Paul and Noelene Hogan, and the brother of Network Seven TV reporter Mylee Hogan – has opened up about his descent as he is jailed.
The source, who requested anonymity, revealed that Jake was traumatised from a tragedy in his immediate family that occurred long before he was jailed for breaking into apartment blocks to fuel his drug habit and menacing an acquaintance.
Jake Paul Hogan (left), the grandson of Hollywood star Paul Hogan, had a normal life, a job, car and home until it spiralled out of control due to methamphetamine
Jake Hogan hoped to marry and have kids with his former partner Rachel Young, but when his dreams didn’t come true he was haunted by the tragedy of losing his mother as a teen
Jake as a boy with his mother Marie and dad Todd in about 1990. Tragedy struck the family with Marie being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and dying from the disease in 2006
Instead of working in his chosen trade, Sydney courts have heard how Hogan carried around housebreaking instruments and loitered around swanky apartment blocks looking for opportunities to steal.
‘He is actually a good person with a very kind personality and a supportive family,’ the acquaintance said.
‘But he is so upset about his mum dying. It happened she he was 14 or 15, but he never got over it because he never processed it properly.
‘When he met Rachel, he thought she was the one and that they would have kids and a family.’
But the relationship ended and that ‘destroyed his dreams of having a family and and then brought up all sorts of past trauma’.
‘He was just shattered. He lost all of his friends and [became] isolated from his family. ‘He was stealing clothes from shops and bikes, loitering is because he was homeless.
‘He used to break into a swimming pool room and sleep in one of hose buildings in Pyrmont.
‘Jake isn’t a bad person but he has completely lost his way. He has never got over his mum dying. So he has real abandonment issues.’
Jake is the grandson of Hollywood celebrity Paul Hogan whose break-out role as Mick ‘Crocodile’ Dundee (above) won him a Golden Globe award and earned him millions
Jake Hogan with Rachel Young, who had plans to marry and have children, but he became a homeless drug addict and police say he began stealing to support his ice habit
In 2006, Jake’s famous grandfather, who was living in Los Angeles with his second wife Linda Kozlowski and their young son Chance, made news by jetting back to Sydney.
The then 67-year-old was coming home to attend the funeral of his daughter in-law, Marie Hogan, who had just died from multiple sclerosis.
Jake’s mother had suffered a ‘very sad’ decline in the weeks leading up to her death from the disease that she had endured during his childhood. She succumbed to it when he was aged 17.
Marie Hogan’s widower, Todd, eventually remarried, to registered nurse Jane, and the couple now live in New Zealand.
Jake Hogan remained in Sydney and appeared to lead a normal and largely blameless life until he began a relationship with a young mother called Rachel Young.
Hogan had some substance abuse issues, but when his relationship broke down and his hopes of having his own family disappeared he ‘became seriously addicted to drugs that just completely took over his life’.
Facing the music
Currently in prison – believed to be Silverwater jail – Hogan is awaiting sentencing next month for breaking into apartment blocks ‘to fuel his high-level drug habit’ and for breaching an apprehended violence order against a woman he terrorised.
Paul Hogan, above with his second wife Linda Kozlowski in 2013, before their divorce the following year
Jake Paul Hogan was a teenager when his beloved mother Marie tragically died from multiple sclerosis after a long illness which ended her life in 2006
Jake Hogan is ‘a good person with a very kind and good personality and a supportive family’, but ice addiction and homelessness made him a desperate man
Hogan was caught on what police described as ‘high quality CCTV’ breaking into different luxury apartment blocks after ‘blatantly loitering’ outside.
According to a police statement of facts, Hogan could plainly be seen breaking into an apartment block in the inner Sydney suburb of Pyrmont, dressed in a black muscle T-shirt with ‘Los Angeles’ in gold lettering, shorts and white New Balance sneakers.
On another occasion he was wearing a black ‘L’HISTOIRE’ singlet and black shorts to break into a block in nearby Waterloo.
Police later found him carrying Trojan brand wire cutters, a black torch, Allen keys and an adjustable wrench.
Hogan also breached an Apprehended Domestic Violence Order five days after it was taken out by a woman, texting her the word ‘DOG’ while she was in the Prince of Wales Hospital.
The woman then received a further 42 calls from different payphones over four hours while in her hospital bed with him either ‘crying on the phone… or becoming very angry and yelling’.
The police facts detail Hogan’s high numbers of arrests and breaches and prior charges including custody of a knife in a public place, malicious damage, drug possession, shoplifting, and possessing stolen goods.
Hogan’s former partner Ms Young also has an AVO out against him.
He has been arrested and charged multiple times, but always granted bail, one friend claimed ‘because his grandfather is a celebrity’.
Hogan was finally taken into custody and refused bail after being caught shoplifting at Coles and Myer in Sydney’s CBD.
He was arrested on February 5 after a staff member spotted him stealing two Dare Iced Coffees at Coles World Square.
Hogan claimed to the worker he was homeless and had no money, later saying to police he had not eaten in days.
He told police he paid $380 weekly rent, and earned $500 weekly from carpentry work and $500 in Centrelink benefits.
He is due to be sentenced in the Downing Centre Local Court via AVL from prison in early May.
