A FRAUDSTER with four aliases has pleaded guilty in the Launceston Magistrates Court to using a forged prison release form in an attempt to receive a crisis payment.
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A heavily tattooed Christopher Morgan (aka Christopher James Reed, Desmond Thomas Sandeman, Chris Desmond Sandman and Christopher Sandman) appeared in court yesterday.
Commonwealth prosecutor Roslyn Shaw said Morgan, 40, attended a Queensland Centrelink with a forged Queensland Corrective Services discharge document.
He asked that a crisis payment - available to newly released inmates - be paid into his bank account along with a Newstart allowance.
The payments were granted but immediately cancelled and not paid when authorities could find no record of the person on the document being in prison.
At the time he was receiving Newstart in another name.
Morgan, now based in Tasmania, also pleaded guilty to obtaining a financial advantage after failing to declare nearly $15,500 in income to Centrelink in 2011.
This resulted in overpayments of more than $5500.
Ms Shaw said Morgan knew his reporting obligations, having been caught rorting the system previously.
The court heard he received a years' jail wholly suspended for Centrelink fraud in 2004.
That offence involved nearly $27,000 worth of overpayments by Centrelink during a three-year period, Ms Shaw said. In 2007 he received a three-year jail sentence for demanding money with threats.
Morgan's lawyer Felicity Radin said her client suffered post traumatic stress after being assaulted by a Queensland bikie as a teenager.
Ms Radin said he'd committed the fraud to provide for his son.
The court heard he'd contacted Centrelink to express remorse and shame for what he'd done.
Ms Radin said Morgan wanted to be taken into remand so he could start serving his sentence immediately.
"You don't hear that submission very often," magistrate Reg Marron said.
Morgan was remanded in custody for sentence on June 30.