Career conman ADMITS to fleecing Eddie Murphy's ex-wife Nicole out of $10million she got in divorce settlement

A convicted conman has admitted to swindling $10million out of Eddie Murphy's ex-wife and pleaded guilty to all 14 charges against him before he was set to go to trial next week.

Troy David Stratos, 50, appeared before US District Judge Troy Nunley on Wednesday and entered guilty pleas to 11 counts of wire and mail fraud, two counts of money laundering, and one count of obstruction of justice.

Stratos had billed himself as a wealthy financial adviser and offered his long-time friend Nicole Murphy to invest a large portion of her $15million divorce settlement with Eddie Murphy in the Middle East, promising that she would earn a high rate of return.

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Guilty as charged: Troy Stratos, 50 (left) has pleaded guilty to defrauding his friend Nicole Murphy (right) out of $10million 

He also used portions of the money to pay Nicole Murphy’s expenses, lying to her that he was spending his own money on her.

However, in court this week, five years after his arrest, the jailed swindler admitted that he never invested any money in Dubai and the United Arab Emirates, as promised. Instead, he funneled massive sums of his friend's money from a trust to finance his own lavish lifestyle.

Stratos is scheduled to be sentenced on November 17. The crimes of mail and wire fraud are punishable by a maximum of 20 years in prison, and charges of money laundering and obstruction of justice carry a maximum penalty of 10 years each.

The actual sentence will be determined at the discretion of the judge, but Stratos' lawyer told The Sacramento Bee that his client could be looking at 'a couple of decades' in prison.

Following the hearing, attorney Tom Johnson said the guilty plea was in his client's 'best interests' because if the case were to proceed, 'it would have been a terribly difficult trial.'  

Stratos contacted Nicole Murphy after her $15million divorce settlement with comedian Eddie Murphy was finalized in 2006 and persuaded her to invest her money overseas.

She put $11million into a revocable trust with Stratos, giving him full access to her personal finances, including real estate and jewelry.

Nicole and Eddie were married for 12 years. They divorced in 2006. Stratos convinced Murphy to allow him access to some of the proceeds from their $15 million divorce settlement

But prosecutors say the conman - recently convicted for concocting an $11million fraud involving Facebook stock  - never invested the money, but used it for his own personal gain. 

Stratos also opened a bank account in Florida and used portions of the money to pay Murphy's expenses while they were on a trip in Europe together, claiming he was paying for her out of his own pocket.

Speaking to Daily Mail Online last week, before Stratos' change of plea, Murphy, 48, said: 'I'm glad to hopefully have this really bad chapter in my life coming to an end with Troy Stratos finally being held accountable for what he did to me and my family.

'Hopefully with his day in court, justice will prevail and Troy Stratos will never be able to take advantage of someone's trust ever again.'

According to prosecutors, Stratos told Murphy - whom he had known since they were teenagers - that he knew members of Middle Eastern royal families and could sell them her home in Granite Bay, California, as well as help her invest millions of dollars into lucrative oil contracts.

He even convinced her to lease luxury Rolls-Royce and BMW cars to make her property more attractive, saying that a potential buyer would purchase the high-end cars along with the house in a package deal, according to the federal indictment.

The financial advice turned out to be little more than a con that allowed Stratos to live in the 10-bedroom, 14-bath house rent-free and use the luxury cars as his own, prosecutors say.

There was never any deal arranged to sell the property to a royal family, they said.

Nicole and Eddie were married for 12 years and had five children together

Stratos - real name Troy Stafford - claimed to have introduced Murphy to her superstar husband Eddie - whom she divorced after a 12-year marriage, which produced four daughters and a son.

He often told people he had connections in the entertainment industry, was a film producer and had enough clout to get President Barack Obama to attend an event.

Authorities later learned that Stratos also used other names, including Troy David, David Stafford, David Burton and Ken Dennis.

Cons he carried out while pretending to be Dennis sent him to prison in Sacramento County.

A federal jury found him guilty of four counts of wire fraud and two counts of money laundering.

The conman was also found guilty in May of fraudulently taking $11.25 million from a businessman.

Timothy Burns thought he had paid the huge sum for pre-IPO Facebook shares when in fact it was stolen by Stratos, who used the money to pay off gambling debts and to buy a $92,000 Land Rover, among other extravagances.

Stratos was found guilty in May of conning businessman Timothy Burns out of $11.25 million. Burns thought the money would go on Facebook shares but instead Stratos used it to repay gambling debts and buy a Land Rover

A federal jury in California found Stratos guilty of that fraud in May and he's awaiting sentencing.

Murphy's attempts to try to get her money back have so far failed.

She hired private investigator Bill Branscum, a former special agent who worked with the FBI's organized crime strike force in Miami, to dig into Stratos' background.

Branscum followed fraudster Stratos' trail from Florida to California to Canada and France.

According to documents seen by Daily Mail Online, Branscum found a realtor in Maui, Hawaii, who said he gave Stratos $1.9million for an investment that never happened.

He also found more wealthy women targeted by Stratos in Vancouver, Canada, who gave the conman at least $16million, and a string of men who said they were his lovers and victims of his scams.

A professional gambler and philanthropist known as Robin Hood 702, who is friends with Nicole Murphy, told Daily Mail Online that Stratos used the money he stole to feed his gambling problem and his extravagant lifestyle.

Robin Hood said Stratos was an 'unbelievably talented' conman and even stole from him after Murphy introduced them.

'I was friends with Nicole and she brought Stratos to my building in Santa Monica where he gave the valet $100 to park his car.

'Parking was free, but he was using her money to make people think he was bigger than life. He was very convincing.'

If convicted, Stratos faces up to 20 years in prison for the wire and mail fraud charges, and up to 10 years for the money laundering and obstruction of justice charges.

Murphy's attorney James M. Williams said Murphy's 'nightmare' was nearing an end.

He said: 'Nicole is such a nice lady and you hate to see bad things happen to good people and that's exactly what's happened here.

'Stratos was already a confidence man, but to then use that confidence against someone he had known since he was a kid, is hard to deal with.

'He took a considerable amount of money from her, and between his actions and the actions of the Bank of America for allowing him to do it, [they] have really put Nicole in a bad position.

'She sees the trial as the first of hopefully several opportunities to get some justice.

'A victory in the criminal justice system against Troy Stratos, I'm sure will be a huge relief for Nicole.

'But we hope to finish the job with the civil suit by recovering at least some of the millions and millions of dollars he took from her.'

Williams added that the civil case is still ongoing but he's hoping a trial date will be set in the coming weeks.

'It's been a long journey but it looks like both the criminal and civil are getting close to an end, an end to Nicole Murphy's nightmare.'