Former Tiger Jake King fears sacking over fresh steroid drug claims
FORMER Richmond footballer Jake King faces extortion charges, but is terrified his boss will sack him upon hearing he’s been charged with possessing steroids, a court has heard.
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FORMER Richmond footballer Jake King faces extortion charges, but is terrified his boss will sack him upon hearing he’s been charged with possessing steroids, a court has heard.
King appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court this morning where his lawyer Geoffrey Steward made the bizarre claims.
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King is accused of threatening to shoot a man and breaking his legs and those of his family over a $150,000 debt.
It remains unclear what job King, who co-owns a South Melbourne tattoo parlour with ex-bikie Toby Mitchell, is afraid of losing.
Mr Steward warned the mystery employer that sacking his client before the matters had been resolved would be “bizarre, outrageous, improper and unlawful”.
He asked magistrate Franz Holzer to suppress the information, but the magistrate told him the cat was already out of the bag.
“It would make a mockery of the court,” he said of the request.
The new charges were added to his existing charges of extortion, making a threat to kill and two counts each of threatening to inflict serious injury, and using a carriage service to harass.
While King has indicated he may plead guilty to most of the charges, Mr Steward said he strongly denied the steroid charges and hoped to have them struck from the police brief of evidence.
A police prosecutor said the charges would only be dropped when King produced the appropriate authorisation for having them.
Mr Steward said should King plead guilty to some charges at his next hearing in March, he would come armed with at least 30 references from upstanding members of the community.
At King’s last appearance in November, the court heard King gave his alleged victim a one month deadline to repay the money before threatening to take the matter into his own hands.
It is understood King met Tony Mokdissi — the business partner of King’s ex-business partner Ty Vickery — in the foyer of Crown Casino in a bid to retrieve the $150,000 debt.
Mr Mokdissi is named as one of several victims in charge sheets released publicly.
They allege that King made the violent threats at Southbank on May 29 in an attempt to scare Mr Mokdissi into paying up.
King was arrested on July 5 over the extortion claims and released on bail.
Speaking publicly about the charges in August, King defended his actions.
“I’m in a little bit of trouble at the moment; however, it’ll be cleared up and the truth does come out in the end,” he said at a women’s lunch at the Macleod Football Club.
“If I asked you a question — if someone robbed you of $500,000, what would you think towards that person?
“The fact that I say it, it makes me a bad person. But the fact I do nothing about it makes me a coward.”