Greek man guilty of bigamy

A Greek man from Tasmania has hit the tabloid headlines after pleading guilty to the highly uncommon, in Australia at least, charge of bigamy. His admission came after the uncovering of falsified documents used to marry a second wife. The fraudulent divorce papers and his subsequent re-marriage make him one of the rarest trial cases ever in the country.
Local police in Tasmania have termed the case unusual and rare even as the 43-year-old man stood before the Hobart Magistrates Court to admit his crime. Nicholas Trikilis (foto) made no attempt to cover his bigamy.
Trikilis married Katrina May Phillips in the month of April in 2008. He had done so after filing false divorce papers. Bizarrely, Trikilis also posted photographs of the wedding ceremony to local newspaper the Mercury. The paper even published one of the pictures, which showed friends and family joining the happy couple as the merrily posed inside Tasmania’s Royal Botanic Gardens.
In a perverse sense of timing, the divorce case involving his still legal wife, or Kerri Anne Statton, was scheduled for hearing tomorrow. This case has been placed on hold while the bigamy charges are resolved. Coningham resident Trikilis admitted to the court that he was guilty of using a forged document, forgery itself, providing a defective divorce notice and also of providing falsified information relating to the charges of bigamy.
Trikilis signed the document in question on January 30, which implied he was divorced, in a bid to end his marriage. On April 18 he presented a public servant at Hobart’s Family Court with false documents before marrying again on April 26th in a civil ceremony. He filed the marriage and divorce papers on the same date – April 28th.
Before sentencing Eames to 21 months’ jail with a 12-month non-parole period, magistrate Ian Matterson said the problem with bigamy was that “you end up with two mothers-in-law”.
Trikilis will be sentenced on April 15.