Alleged music industry conman Dene Broadbelt has confirmed he is still alive and has denied faking his own death after a press release was circulated on Tuesday, March 17th announcing his apparent suicide.
“I am not dead,” Broadbelt told the Bay Post Moruya Examiner yesterday, March 19th, days after a press statement was sent to a variety of media outlets, including Music Feeds, from a “Jason Blackford” announcing, “the sad news that Dene Broadbelt died unexpectedly on Saturday night when he took his own life.”
The release also stated there would be “a memorial service held ASAP”. Reports the Examiner, Broadbelt denied “100 per cent” having played any role in sending out the release and said he believes it came from a man he once worked with at a Dubbo radio station.
He said he did not know why the release had been written but admitted to have left the station “on bad terms”. According to The Warrnambool Standard, he also accused the Dene Broadbelt Support Group for victims, including its member Noel Sadler, of writing the notice and for attacking his reputation.
“I am taking legal action,” he said. “Everywhere I go I am hounded.” Speaking to Music Feeds yesterday, Mr Sadler said he thought the release was a “fake” and was concocted by Broadbelt himself. “Knowing Dene as well as I know him now, it’s just another way of him trying to put people off his track,” he said.
Broadbelt has used several aliases over time in a string of alleged scams and unpaid debts across various industries in Australia, including several dubious ventures in the music industry. He was implicated last year as the man responsible for the “scam” Infinity Music Festival in Darwin.
He has denied being a conman, but has admitted to declaring bankruptcy last year after racking up debts of $250,000. “I made a mistake when I was younger,” he said. “There was no option other to declare myself bankrupt.”
He told the Examiner that due to “death threats” he has legally changed his “through Births, Deaths and Marriages” to Harrison O’Connor – the name he was reportedly using in the Victorian Timboon region over the last few weeks whilst allegedly trying to set up a real estate venture.
In regards to one of his other aliases, Dene Mussillon, he says that was his mother’s name and his registered birth name. He said he changed his name at the age of five to his father’s surname name, Broadbelt. According to The Standard, he is now applying to change his name to Harrison Eyles.
Broadbelt also said the police had visited his home in Timboon region on Friday, but have not charged him with anything. They have, he says, advised him to leave town. “I have basically been run out of town,” he said. “I have had death threats.”
Broadbelt said he does feel pity for the people who have lost money from his many ventures, but added that “the majority of them, 99 per cent have accepted it and there is no more that they can do.”
