Meet the high school dropouts, one of whom spiralled into drug addiction after trying meth aged EIGHT, who started a $1.7m business by bonding over their criminal fathers

A pair of high school enemies started a burgeoning fitness empire after bonding through the shared pain of growing up with their fathers behind bars.

Jesse Trout and Reno Marrasso had to raise themselves when their fathers were jailed for armed robbery, domestic violence, and drug trafficking.

Their criminal fathers and broken homes sent their lives off the rails, with Reno trying meth at just eight years old and spiraling into drug addiction as a teenager.

But the pair turned their lives around to take over three Anytime Fitness gyms in Adelaide – going from high school dropouts to business owners who raked in $1.7 million last year. 

A pair of high school enemies started a burgeoning fitness empire after bonding through the shared pain of growing up with their fathers behind bars

Reno Marrasso, 29, grew up with a revolving door of violent father figures including his biological dad, who spent large parts of his childhood in jail. 

'When I was born he was actually in prison. When my mum was pregnant with me, he shot at her with a sawn-off shotgun,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 

Reno's mother Frances Marrasso explained the mid-1991 shooting started with a drunken argument over backyard cricket.

'He got angry because he didn't like the way people were playing, and then he went to hit me,' she said.

Reno Marrasso, 29, grew up with a revolving door of violent father figures including his biological dad, who spent large parts of his childhood in jail

Ms Marrasso said Reno's sister, then aged just six, stood between her parents and told her father 'you're not touching my mum'.

She said the couple then went inside and after some more argument, Marrasso grabbed the shotgun and fired it at her.

'I was so scared when he pointed it at me, I just froze and thought "if I die, I die" but he just missed me,' she said.

Ms Marrasso said her husband was in jail when Reno was born in August 1991 because the family's babysitter, a girl of 16 or 17, accused him of assault.

Records indicate he was charged with two counts of assault, but the girl later lost her nerve and the case collapsed.

Ms Marrasso said he was also convicted of domestic violence twice in the early 1990s, including one time that left her needing eye surgery.

'I thought that him hitting me was better than hitting the kids. I wish I had the courage to leave him earlier,' she said.  

Reno said at the age of five after failing to ride his bicycle without training wheels, his father broke the bike in half to teach him a lesson.

Another time, Marrasso took him to Auskick but was so abusive about his struggles that he never wanted to play again. 

Reno Marrasso, with Personal Trainer Amber Breg at Anytime Fitness Seaford

Reno's father wasn't just abusive to his family, but had other convictions for violent crime before Reno was born.

In June 1985 he and Paul Edward McInerney held up a shot with a .22 rifle, making off with just $10 from the register.

The crime was a poorly-planned debacle, outlined in a scathing rebuke by Justice Maurice O'Loughlin in the April 1986 sentencing.

'There were aspects of your crime which were most serious, but there were other matters which indicated it was a very amateurish and very stupid episode,' he said.

Though the pair wore balaclavas when they pointed the rifle at the female cashier, the getaway car was registered to Marrasso.

Justice O'Loughlin noted he was 'so inept' that he failed to properly cover the number plate and a witness wrote it down, leading to a quick arrest.

The hapless crooks tried to report the car stolen but confessed immediately under police interrogation.

Justice O'Loughlin described Marrasso as an 'angry young man, embittered by your long-term conflict with your parents' who had a 'hostile exterior but in reality you are a frightened, depressed individual'.

Reno Marrasso and Jesse Trout (pictured together) had to raise themselves when their fathers were jailed for a series of crimes, including armed robbery, domestic violence, drug trafficking and weapons offences

He backhandedly told Marrasso he had 'average intelligence' and was therefore mot entitled to leniency given to McInerney, who had a mental disability.

Marrasso was jailed for 4.5 years with an 18-month non-parole period, half the usual three years because Justice O'Loughlin hoped he could be rehabilitated.

However, His Honour was wrong and Marrasso was back behind bars by 1989 when he 'viciously' bashed another man while he was on parole.

The beating left the victim with a bloodied and bruised face and a broken nose that required surgery to fix.

Jesse Trout, 29, (pictured with his daughter, Athena) grew up in a household with an increasingly preoccupied father and a mother spiralling into the depths of prescription drug-addiction and depression

Despite his armed robbery conviction and lengthy criminal history, the judge decided to suspend his 15-month sentence due to his troubled childhood.

'I understand that you have been subjected to a great deal of violence yourself during your life from your father,' Judge Stevens said. 

This violence passed between generations was something Reno was desperate to avoid repeating himself. 

Ms Marrasso finally left her husband in about 1997 when Reno was six, but the cycle of violence was not over. 

'Before my mum met my step dad she had a lot of different men in the house and they were very aggressive, quite abusive with me. So, a lot of floggings as a kid. But it helped make me who I am now,' Reno said. 

After growing up watching his parents taking drugs and drinking heavily, it wasn't long before he began to experiment himself.

'I started doing meth at the age of eight or nine. Eating meth out of little batman bags, but I was smoking heaps of weed, chuffing paint, smoking cigarettes and drinking,' he said.

When he was 13 he was kicked out of his mother's house and moved in with his father, whose forceful parenting had a long-lasting impact on who he became as an adult.  

Jesse and dad Shane pose on a motorbike in a happy snap from Jesse's childhood

Shane and Jesse in their high school years where they were not friends, but later reunited

The struggling teen dropped out high school and signed up for Centrelink after being fired from five jobs in a row, including Hungry Jack's, a nightclub, a pub and a bottle depot.

But after reconnecting with his high-school nemesis, the pair realised they had more in common than they originally realised. 

Jesse Trout, 29, grew up in a household with an increasingly preoccupied father and a mother spiralling into the depths of prescription drug-addiction and depression.

He had a serious wake-up call when his mentor stepfather was arrested after being connected with a major drug operation out of Southeast Asia. 

He was one of five men arrested for importing large quantities of a designer drug into Australia from Vietnam.

Jesse said he had always looked up to his stepdad despite his criminal history.

'My dad was arguably a good guy. He was just very business oriented. As I got older and he went through some bad experiences in business he got screwed over and he made mistakes which led him down a pretty dark path of drugs,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

'It wasn't just selling a bag or two, it was importing kilos of drugs.'

The father and son always bonded over their desire to do well in business 

The boys were 'high school enemies' and only connected after meeting at a night club in Adelaide after they dropped out 

The drug was Methylenedioxypyrovalerone or MDPV, one of the original designer drugs that came on to the scene in Australia 10 to 15 years ago. 

Like meth or MDMA, the drug is a stimulant that causes alertness in the user and promotes a euphoric feeling and sociability.

His co-accused imported other designer drugs including PZP and BZP, and along with Trout smuggled them it through a legitimate pot importing business. 

The judge noted Trout was the one who sent the cash to China to pay for the drugs, and maintained contact with the Chinese supplier.

He also tracked the shipment and arranged the delivery of a manual pill press, but was noted to be low on the organisation's totem pole.

'It is likely that you were being used by others as a frontman for their involvement in their crime,' the judge said.

Jesse said growing up with a tough upbringing made him realise how important it was to be a good father figure for his daughter (pictured with fiancee Emma Martin)

But they have been best friends for the past years, and are practically inseparable

After serving two years in jail and one year in home detention of his five-year sentence, Shane Trout was released on parole in April 2015. 

This was not Trout's first drug conviction, as he was jailed for 15 months, all of which was suspended, in 2005 when Jesse was 14, for a cannabis growing operation.

Trout had invested in a leather company but relations soured with the other directors and he lost a lot of money when he was forced out.

To get enough money to recover his losses enough to start a new business, he set up a sophisticated hydroponic lab with 188 cannabis plants and 170 cuttings.

The operation was hidden in two shipping containers buried on his property with a shade-house on top of them with a trapdoor leading down.

The judge noted he had no idea how he was going to market the marijuana and his actions were in desperation following the business disaster.

He was forced to forfeit $66,000 in cash and property to the state, which along with his early guilty plea reduced his jail sentence. 

Shane Trout acknowledged the convictions were serious errors in judgment, but proved to be an important learning experience.  

They are also now business partners, taking over three Anytime Fitness Franchises in Adelaide's Seaford, Murray Bridge and Collonades

In the past year they managed to make more than $1.7million including profits from the sale of another gym franchise at Stirling Territory

'I started off my career doing quite well in business and then some pretty hardcore things went down and I lost lots and lots of money and I just made some really unwise decisions trying to catch up, and it didn't go to plan,' he said. 

Despite his own mistakes he said his life has changed for the better, and he couldn't be more proud of how his stepson turned out.  

'I always had the impression Jesse would do well because he has always had that used car salesman mentality. He always had the gift of the gab. I always knew he would do well,' he said.

Jesse considered his stepdad a mentor throughout his childhood, but struggled to deal with his mother's issues including her dependency on prescription medication.

'Growing up I would say we had an ambulance come and pick her up once every two months. It wasn't until this year that she couldn't handle it anymore,' Jesse said.

His mother died of a drug overdose last month, and it's something the young father is still struggling to come to terms with.

'I learnt from my mum who I didn't want to be. She was rorting the system, getting single parent benefits while we weren't living with her, stealing constantly from businesses and other people.

His mother died of a drug overdose last month, and it's something the young father is still struggling to come to terms with

Despite their issues in younger years they discovered they had both faced similar struggles growing up

'Seeing that I was realised I don't want to be like that, I don't want to be a person who makes society worse. I wanted to be someone who could do good for myself and do good for other people and now for my daughter as well.' 

Reno and Jesse connected at a nightclub in Adelaide after simultaneously dropping out of high school.

Despite their issues in younger years they discovered they had both faced similar struggles growing up.  

'We started off as high school enemies, we constantly had issues. Whenever one of us liked a girl or something like that the other one would end up being with that person,' Jesse said. 

'We were high school dropouts destined to go down the same path as our parents. 

'There were parts of us that almost did go down that path until we got to a point where we realised we could push ourselves out of that.'

Now they are business partners, taking over three Anytime Fitness Franchises in Adelaide's Seaford, Murray Bridge and Collonades.

In the past year they managed to make more than $1.7 million including profits from the sale of another gym franchise at Stirling Territory.

Like Jesse, Reno attributed his success to overcoming a tough childhood and a desire to be a better person than his father. 

Like Jesse, (pictured left) Reno (pictured right) has attributed his success to overcoming a tough childhood and a desire to be a better person than his father 

The two vowed to turn their lives around after dropping out of high school

But he said any success he had is down to his own resilience and has no desire to make his father proud.  

'He has praised me a lot of times... but I don't really need his approval, I like to protect and care for everyone in my life. I'm the provider, I don't let anyone look after me. I learnt that the hard way when I was young,' Reno said.

'I hope one day if I have kids my children will come to me and be like- hey I want you to be proud of me.'  

He doesn't blame his dad for his heavy handed parenting but refuses to reconnect with him until he erases his past mistakes.

Those included a series of racially symbolic tattoos he had done when he was part of a gang.

'He has swastikas tattooed around his wrist - not for a racial thing. But as you become older you become aware of the symbolism for that. And my mum is black, and I'm half aboriginal,' he said.

'And the last time we spoke I said to him until you get rid of them I don't want to hear from you.'

The business owners are hoping to buy another two franchises in the next year, with the dream of owning 10 in three years. 

The boys are no longer fighting over girls and work side by side instead

Reno's and Jesse's Tips for Success 

Planning is key to turn your dream into a vision. It took a timeline and established goals to work up to buying their own Anytime Fitness franchises.

Consistency was key, not letting drawbacks distract them from their overall mission.

Dedication to working hard meant being willing to put in long hours and make sacrifices along the way.

Putting fear aside was essential while learning as they went with little training in the industry.  

Identifying their strengths and setting their intent early was imperative in achieving their goals.