An alleged con artist accused of pretending to be a spy during a scheme to defraud a man of more than $700,000 is set to plead guilty, but precisely what he will admit to remains the subject of negotiations.
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Jeremiah Thomas James Deakin, previously of Red Hill, was charged last year with 156 fraud offences and 78 counts of impersonating a Commonwealth official.
The 30-year-old's case has been slowly progressing through the ACT Magistrates Court ever since, with lawyers appearing on his behalf.
When Deakin attended court for the first time on Tuesday morning, his solicitor James Maher said the matter was "going to resolve".
Mr Maher said lawyers were in the process of "redrafting the statement of facts", which was a complex task given the sheer volume of charges.
The original statement of facts, which is a document outlining the allegations against Deakin, has never been tendered to the court.
When quizzed by Magistrate James Lawton about how Deakin intended to enter guilty pleas to such a large number of charges, Mr Maher said he was hoping to strike an agreement with prosecutors to have the hundreds of counts reduced to just one.
While it is unclear exactly what Deakin plans to admit to, it is common for several criminal charges to be "rolled up" into a smaller number of counts that represent a range of offences.
When Deakin was first charged, ACT Policing said in a statement that his alleged offending had spanned years.
"Police will allege that between 2016 and 2018 the man obtained more than $700,000 from a person known to him, through various deceptive means including falsely representing himself to be an employee of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation," the statement said.
During their investigation, police executed a number of search warrants including one at Deakin's now former home in Red Hill.
Officers seized three horses and a Mitsubishi Triton utility from the 30-year-old under the Confiscation of Criminal Assets Act.
Deakin was also sentenced on Tuesday for an unrelated drug-driving offence from September.
Mr Maher told the court that the unemployed man, who now lives in western Sydney, accepted that he had made "a poor decision" to be behind the wheel.
The lawyer said Deakin had long struggled with drug addiction, which had stemmed from his "difficult and tumultuous upbringing".
He told Mr Lawton that in recent times, Deakin had "shown a real willingness to address his drug use".
Mr Lawton agreed with Mr Maher that the focus in sentencing Deakin for the drug-driving offence had to be on "trying to get [him] clean".
The magistrate convicted Deakin and placed him on a 12-month good behaviour order, while also disqualifying him from driving for 18 months.
Deakin is due back in court on the fraud and impersonation charges in March.
