The music industry alleged conman Dene Broadbelt, aka Luke Hemmings, has resurfaced and been officially charged with fraud.
Broadbelt, now 30 years old, was arrested after Queensland police executed a search warrant at his Whitefox Recruitment office in Southport, Radioinfo reports.
According to the company’s biography, Whitefox recruitment is supposedly “the Gold Coast’s number one recruitment agency.”
A spokesperson for Queensland Police told Radioinfo of Broadbelt’s arrest: “Following an investigation, police have charged a 30-year-old man with three fraud offences relating to dishonestly induces delivery of property value of at least $100,000.”
Broadbelt is set to appear in the Southport Magistrates Court on Thursday, 8 August.
The alleged conman has gone by numerous names, including Luke Hemmings, Harrison O’Connor, Dene Mussillon (spelt both Mussillon and Musillon by different sources) and Dene Morgan.
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Broadbelt last made headlines on The Music in March 2015, when in a truly bizarre turn of events, he denied faking his own death.
In a press release sent around the country on 17 March 2015 by a Jason Blackford, the writer claimed that Broadbelt had “died unexpectedly” on Saturday, 14 March, of self-inflicted causes and that funeral arrangements were being made “ASAP”.
The statement went on to provide a number ostensibly to get in contact with Broadbelt’s mother, though advised against calling it except in the case of emergency, and even quoted a passage from his alleged suicide note.
In an interview with the Bay Post/Moruya Examiner, Broadbelt went on the record and said that he wasn’t dead. In that same interview, he revealed that he’d changed his name to Harrison O’Connor, as he was previously known by a previous alias linked to several allegations of fraudulent behaviour.
Broadbelt claimed to change his name on the advice of his lawyer, as well as having to declare bankruptcy in the wake of his failed ventures, which included a music festival and talent-signing pursuits.
The Music reported that Broadbelt was in charge of Paramount Agency & Touring and responsible for the “scam” Infinity Music Festival in Darwin, a messy financial dispute following Goulburn’s Eagle FM Mini Day Out and several allegedly unpaid invoices relating to the music industry.
Broadbelt denied his widely reported status as a conman, claiming that his situation — on which The Music reported widely in 2014 — was simply a case of debts spinning out of control.
