A
washed up former professional footballer who masqueraded as a Premier
League star to maintain his celebrity life of champagne and shopping
sprees is facing a 'substantial' stretch in jail for fraud today.
Medi
Abalimba, 24, who once earned £4,000 a week and was tipped for stardom,
was so ashamed at his career at top flight clubs floundering due to
injury he falsely claimed to be multi-millionaire Chelsea midfielder
Gael Kakuta to get drink and clothes on credit.
During
one incident he duped starstruck staff into running up a £25,000 bar
tab on Cristal champagne in one West End Club in London claiming 'he was
a Premier League star and good for the money'.
He
also ran up a £9,600 bill at three London luxury hotels, took a bar in
Manchester for another £5,000, scrounged suites in luxury apartment
complexes and spent £11,000 on limousines saying he had an American
Express credit card.
Abalimba
was caught after he attempted to buy clothing worth more than £20,000
from a store at the Trafford Centre near Manchester on a dodgy credit
card only for staff to become suspicious and retain the items.
He claimed his one-time massive weekly wage left him with a 'wholly unrealistic' understanding of money.
Today at
Manchester Crown Court, Abalimba, of Kings Cross, London, admitted three
charges of fraud, taking a Range Rover without consent and making off
without paying for £104 worth of petrol.
Nearly
all the offences involved him making false representations that he was
Gael Kakuta. He was also appearing for sentence for five other counts of
similar frauds in London and Derby in which he claimed to be the former
Chelsea star. He asked for 19 other offences to be considered.
Judge
Robert Atherton agreed to an adjournment until later this month for the
preparation of background reports but said: 'How will a pre-sentence
report assist me in a case which will inevitably be a substantial prison
sentence? I'm not planning a non-custodial sentence.'
0 Comment:
Post a Comment