Orpheus Pledger, the former star of Home and Away, is set to get off with a slap on the wrist after claims that he was caught with methamphetamine, often known as ice.
The buffed actor will be dealt with ‘off papers’ at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court rather than being dragged into court to face the music, in a sign of the times in Covid-plagued Melbourne.
Pledger is likely to admit to having a little more than half a gramme of amphetamine and 30 Diazepam tablets, according to the Daily Mail Australia.
On February 19, police detained him in Prahran, a suburb just outside Melbourne’s CBD, when he was reportedly caught with the narcotics.
On Thursday, Pledger was supposed to appear in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on two counts of narcotics possession, but the case was postponed for ‘diversion’ next week.
Pledger will not formally plead to the charges under the diversion plan, instead making admissions to the charged offences.
Diversion plans are frequently given to first-time offenders under Victorian law, and they are meant to have little influence on a person’s life in the future.
After being placed on a diversion plan for an assault charge in May, MasterChef’s Ben Ungermann was given an undertaking of good behaviour and instructed to donate $1000 to White Ribbon Australia.
Ungermann, unlike Pledger, was compelled to fly from Queensland to Melbourne to face the magistrate in person.
Court hearings are virtually exclusively held through videolink under Melbourne’s current Covid lockdown, with many cases being addressed with in chambers by magistrates.
In July, the Daily Mail Australia discovered that Pledger had run afoul of the law.
Before he was accused with transporting the lethal narcotic ice, his life had been on a ‘downward spiral.’
Pledger, a sculpted Adonis on the exterior, allegedly sent off alarm bells when filming Channel 7’s The All New Monty: Guys & Gals in Sydney late last year.
Pledger looked to enjoy his time pulling his gear off on camera for his adoring followers, as if it were a glorified strip show.
Covid had seen Pledger reinvent himself as an Instagram celebrity and part-time music producer after his Home And Away character was killed off in 2019.
He made news in October when he revealed a new love interest, and Pledger was said to be “the happy” he’d been in a long time.
However, in June, the 28-year-old raised eyebrows when he filmed himself in the shower and showed a lot more than he bargained for.
In the filthy video, Pledger momentarily exposes his manhood.
Before walking out nude and preening in front of the bathroom mirror, he had been flaunting his ripped body.
While it was dismissed at the time as a harmless incident, the Daily Mail Australia has learned that people closest to Pledger were concerned for his well-being.
During a strange court appearance in July, he urged the magistrate to ‘be gentle’ with him as he sucked from a vaporizer and stroked a black cat.
Pledger has been suffering since leaving Home And Away in 2019, according to a source close to him who requested to remain anonymous to Daily Mail Australia.
‘Orpheus has been exhibiting this troublesome behaviour for a long,’ the insider added, referring to his return to Melbourne after his character was killed off.
According to reports, his increasingly erratic and concerning behaviour persisted after his divorce from his girlfriend late last year.
Since the allegations were made public in July, the actor’s Instagram profile has been rather quiet.
