Faux prince pleads no contest to deadbeat dad charge Mike Martindale / The Detroit News
Pontiac -- A former Beverly Hills, Mich. man who worked as an FBI informant while living as an Austrian prince appeared in Oakland Circuit Court today and pleaded no contest to non-payment of more than $200,000 in child support.
A pale-looking, bespectacled Josef von Habsburg-Lothringen -- formerly Josef Meyers of Beverly Hills -- has been in the Oakland County Jail awaiting an Aug. 31 trial on child neglect charges for a longstanding debt to his Michigan wife and three children, whom he allegedly abandoned in 1993.
The 50-year-old von Habsburg-Lothringen was arrested May 17 by the U.S. Marshal's Office in New York, where he was found hiding in a closet. He said little during his brief appearance before Judge Wendy Potts. He quietly acknowledged he understood his right to a trial but gave up that and other rights to plead no contest to the charge, which can normally carry up to 15 years in prison.
Von Habsburg-Lothringen was remanded to jail in lieu of $75,000 bond. He is to be sentenced Aug. 11. Under a sentencing agreement and state guidelines, he could receive between five and 44 months in a state prison
"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives." Winter is Coming Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
