Reality TV star Sam Wood has been moved to a prison for high-profile detainees, where he is sharing a roof with some of Queensland’s most notorious criminals.
Wood is accused of assaulting and choking his wife, Snezana – who he met on The Bachelor in 2015 – while they were holidaying in Noosa, on the Sunshine Coast, this month.
The 46-year-old fitness influencer and millionaire was charged with assault occasioning bodily harm (domestic violence) and strangulation in a domestic setting. He denied bail in the Maroochydore Magistrates Court last week.
Last Thursday, Wood was taken to the Brisbane Correctional Centre, in the south-west Brisbane suburb of Wacol, but has since been transferred to the Wolston Correctional Centre, also in Wacol.
Both are high-security prisons, but Wolston is used for more high-profile criminals and those on remand, such as Wood.
The details of Wood’s alleged offending were aired during his bail hearing in Maroochydore, where Acting Magistrate Janelle Boegheim said Snezana told police she feared he would kill her during an argument about packing at their luxury holiday unit on Hastings Street in Noosa.
He allegedly threw her into a wall twice before choking her and banging her head on the floor, prompting her daughter, Eve Markoski-Wood, to call Triple Zero.
The court heard Wood attacked his wife after he aggressively approached Markoski-Wood and Snezana placed herself between the two.
“While keeping a firm hold of [Snezana], he has thrown her to the ground, and whilst on the ground, held her throat, gripping tighter and restricting her airway, preventing her from breathing,” Boegheim said.
The acting magistrate said Wood had recalled pushing his wife away, but explicitly denied strangling or harming her in any way.
While his lawyer, Mathew Cuskelly, vowed to apply for Supreme Court bail outside the Sunshine Coast court, a date is yet to be set.
Last Friday, Cuskelly told this masthead he would apply for bail upon instruction from Wood, but would not comment on the matter when reached by phone on Tuesday.
Wood capitalised on his Bachelor stardom to become a household celebrity name. He sold his fitness business, 28 by Sam Wood, for $71 million in 2022 to billionaire businessman Dennis Bastas.