Apollo Nida, husband of The Real Housewives of Atlanta star Phaedra Parks, plead guilty to mail, wire and bank fraud charges on Tuesday, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Apollo will be sentenced on July 8, but his offenses could land him in prison for up to 30 years with a possibility of fines and restitution totaling more than $3 million.
Apollo’s conspirator, Gayla St. Julian, was already sentenced to 61 months in jail last month. She said at the time that it was Apollo who was in charge of their schemes.
Apollo was accused of “opening a fake debt collection agency to gain access to databases full of individual’s personal information,” according to AJC. He would then steal people’s identities to claim their government refunds. He and his accomplice also used the fake IDs to open multiple mailboxes and checking accounts to deposit the checks and steal the money. He also created fake car dealerships to get auto loans for cars that never existed.
“I take full responsibility for my actions,” Apollo said in court. “It was a dumb situation I put myself in.”
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This is not Apollo’s first offense. He spent five years in prison, before he married Phaedra in 2009, for other white collar fraud charges. In fact, he met Phaedra while she was representing him.
According to AJC, Apollo wanted to keep up with the amount of money Phaedra was making as an attorney and appearing on the show which is why he resulted to stealing money. He also said that there was pressure to maintain a certain lifestyle of a reality TV star. “I got sucked in and engulfed and lost sight of things,” he said.
Phaedra and Apollo are the parents of two boys, Aiden, 4, and Dylan, 1. She is expected to return for The Real Housewives of Atlanta season 7, which is due to start filming again soon. Since Apollo won’t be sentenced until July, it likely all of this will play out in front of the cameras. That is if she doesn’t file for divorce first.
(Image and videos courtesy of Bravo)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
