A former policeman who represented Hertfordshire in the European Parliament until May faces jail after admitting fiddling £36,000 in expenses.
Tom Wise, 61, from Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, changed his pleas to charges of false accounting and money laundering to guilty during a trial at at Southwark Crown Court.
Wise, who represented the East of England, including Hertfordshire for UKIP until the party whip was withdrawn in 2007, channelled £3,000 a month, supposedly paid to an assistant, into a bank account he controlled between December 2004 and December 2005.
But in fact he was paying her only £500 a month, and spending the rest on expensive wine and cars.
The assistant, told by Wise to sign documents to perpetrate the fraud, was also on trial for charges dropped after his confession.
The former MEP has been released on bail until Wednesday when he will be sentenced.
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