Latest news with #KeremBulut
Daily Mail
19 hours ago
- Daily Mail
The sad curse of the Aussie tipped to be the 'next Tim Cahill' as the tragic fate of fallen star's lover and his partner-in-crime is revealed after she made a DEADLY blunder
A woman who accompanied fallen soccer star Kerem Bulut on a violent robbery died of a drug overdose last year after taking heroin she believed was cocaine. Angel Mounce-Stephens, 43, was found dead at her Newtown home in Sydney's inner-west on August 30, having long struggled with substance abuse. The body of her friend, 30-year-old social media influencer Dunka Raymond Caldwell, known on TikTok as 'Humdinger', was located at his Glebe home hours earlier. It is believed the pair had taken the same batch of contaminated cocaine. Mounce-Stephens, also known as Angela Yazgan, had been in a relationship with Bulut two years ago when he staged a robbery in which she took part. She had convictions for drug supply and possession, as well as theft, shoplifting, fraud and dealing with the proceeds of crime, and had previously been ordered to undertake rehabilitation. Mounce-Stephens was sentenced over her role in the crime she committed with Bulut three weeks before she died. Bulut, who had once been tipped for international footballing greatness, pleaded guilty in June to demanding property by force while in company and will face a sentencing hearing later this month. The Daily Mail can now reveal the events which led up to that offence, which have kept the 33-year-old behind bars for almost two years. Bulut, whose sporting career fell apart after he was caught using cocaine in 2018, subsequently developed a meth addiction and his life went off the rails. The onetime A-League cult hero with Western Sydney Wanderers was 31 and living in a notorious inner-city public housing block at the time of his latest crime. His victim, whom Bulut had never met, was a 37-year-old man from Bathurst, in the NSW central west, who was staying in Sydney with friends in late August 2023. On August 31, Bulut sent a series of texts to a friend who knew the victim, calling the victim by his first name. In one message sent about 7.30pm, Bulut referred to former AFL player and commentator Rex Hunt, who is perhaps just as well- known for his fishing television shows. 'Brother, send him girls photos, send him girls,' the text began, according to a statement of facts tendered in court. 'Go on Instagram, just pick any girl, model and that, say it's the girls, this that, hook line and sinker brother, Rex Hunt the motherf***er, then we put him in the fishing net.' About an hour later, Bulut's friend contacted the victim via the encrypted messaging app Signal and asked if he wanted to 'party with some girls at an Airbnb' in Sydney's east. The friend sent the victim images of two women with the message: 'The girls found [an] Airbnb in Coogee for $1000, and they are adamant they want it.' According to the statement of facts, the victim agreed and about 11.30pm drove a rental car to a block of units in Bundock Street, South Coogee. There, Bulut's friend was waiting with two women, one of whom was Mounce-Stephens, according to the court documents. All four went up to a unit where Bulut confronted the victim in the loungeroom. 'Sit down, we need to have a chat,' Bulut told the victim after the friend and two women had left the room. When the victim said, 'I have been driving for a bit, I'm good,' Bulut responded, 'I have heard you've been talking s***' and confronted him about his previous contact with Mounce-Stephens. Bulut then used a closed fist to strike the victim to the side of his mouth, causing him to bleed, according to the court documents. 'Sit the f*** down,' Bulut said, before another man of large stature and 'Islander heritage' joined him in the loungeroom. 'You've been talking s***, saying I'm a dog,' Bulut told the victim, punching him in the side of the head as he tried to protect himself. 'You're going to give me money, everything you've got on you,' Bulut warned. The victim replied: 'Come on man, I haven't done anything wrong.' Bulut asked the victim to hand over his phone and unlock it. He then used a banking app to transfer $600 belonging to Mounce-Stephens, court documents revealed. The victim denied carrying a wallet and tried to move towards the door but the Islander winded him with a strike to the torso. Bulut handed the victim a tissue to wipe blood from his lip, and the victim said he would try to get more money. There was an argument over the keys to the rental car until the victim surrendered them. The Islander and Mounce-Stephens then went outside to the vehicle. Bulut and the victim stayed upstairs and had further discussions before going down to the car, which the Islander plundered of goods. The Islander left the scene after stealing the victim's Louis Vuitton wallet, which contained $1,500 in cash, as well as his sunglasses, Bluetooth speaker and a bottle of perfume. Bulut took from the boot a G-Star hooded jumper, another Fendi jumper, a tracksuit, two T-shirts, three pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks and a pair of slides. CCTV captured Bulut wearing the victim's G-Star top near his home in Belvoir Street, Surry Hills at about 3am, and the Fendi jumper nearly an hour later. Bulut was in possession of the Louis Vuitton wallet when stopped by police in nearby Devonshire Street four days later on September 5. He was arrested on September 11 at Maroubra police station while reporting for bail on an unrelated matter. Bulut pleaded guilty to demanding property by force while in company at Downing Centre District Court on June 12 and will face a sentencing hearing on August 21. He will also face sentencing for an offence of larceny, while the charge of robbery in company will not proceed on the indictment. Mounce-Stephens was originally charged with robbery in company but that count was withdrawn at Downing Centre Local Court on August 8 last year. On the same day she pleaded guilty to larceny of goods worth more than $5,000 but less than $15,000 and was placed on a nine-month intensive correction order. Bulut was remanded in custody at the time of his arrest until bail was granted under extremely strict conditions in October 2024. His bail was revoked a month later. Since 2020, Bulut has been prosecuted for a string of offences under the names Kerem Bulut, Karem Bulut, Kerim Bulut, Keiran Bulut and Kerim Bulet. His September 2023 arrest came 15 months after Bulut had begged a magistrate for help overcoming an ice addiction he said began in jail. Before his downfall, Bulut had been considered a potential successor to Socceroos legends Tim Cahill or Harry Kewell who would ultimately fill the goal-scoring gap left in the national team by their retirement. The gun striker played for the Australian U17, U20 and U23 sides before securing European contracts with clubs in Germany, Greece and Turkey, as well as his two stints with the Wanderers. But Bulut's life began to publicly unravel in October 2018 when he was banned from football for four years after being caught using cocaine while playing professionally in Turkey. Following the deaths of Mounce-Stephens and Caldwell, police launched an investigation under Strike Force Chatton. 'Police are awaiting the results of a post-mortem examination to determine the exact cause of their deaths,' a NSW Police spokesman said at the time.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Mail
Kerem Bulut could have been the next Harry Kewell - but instead he's spent years in jail after he fell into a life of petty crime and meth addiction
A soccer star once tipped for greatness on the international stage has been languishing in prison for almost two years after descending into crippling drug addiction and a life of petty crime. Kerem Bulut seemed to have the footballing world at his nimble feet until he was caught using cocaine in 2018, but more than three years after vowing to get himself off meth, he's still behind bars. Since 2020, he has been prosecuted in courts across Sydney for a string of offences under the names Kerem Bulut, Karem Bulut, Kerim Bulut, Keiran Bulut and Kerim Bulet. The 33-year-old most recently pleaded guilty to demanding property by force while in company at Downing Centre District Court in June and will face a sentencing hearing later this month. The one-time A-League cult hero with Western Sydney Wanderers was living in a notorious inner-city public housing block when he was arrested in September 2023. Bulut initially pleaded not guilty to a robbery charge which related to the theft of cash and luxury goods including a Louis Vuitton wallet and Fendi jumper from a man in the city's eastern suburbs. That arrest came 15 months after Bulut had begged a magistrate for help overcoming an ice addiction he said began in jail. Before his downfall, Bulut had been considered a potential successor to Socceroos legends Tim Cahill or Harry Kewell who would ultimately fill the goal-scoring gap left in the national team by their retirement. The gun striker played for the Australian U17, U20 and U23 sides before securing European contracts with clubs in Germany, Greece and Turkey, as well as his two stints with the Wanderers. But Bulut's life began to publicly unravel in October 2018 when he was banned from football for four years after being caught using cocaine while playing professionally in Turkey. Upon his return to Australia, Bulut was arrested over a series of offences and eventually found himself at the Metropolitan Remand and Reception Centre at Silverwater. In June 2019, Bulut told the Daily Mail he was 'trying to put everything behind me and move forward' as he appealed his drug ban in an attempt to return to the football field. Bulut vowed he had finished with drugs and was even considering having his trademark teardrop face tattoos removed. 'I am sick of the bad boy image,' he told Fox Sports at the time. Two years into his drug ban in May 2020, Bulut opened up about his personal struggles, saying he was close to breaking point. 'I don't know if I can last any longer,' he told The Sydney Morning Herald. 'I try not to break because if I break, that will be it. 'You have to show your face to your family, friends and the people who look at you. You let a lot of people down. 'My biggest enemy and my biggest problem is myself.' Bulut still has his face tattoos and has sometimes been disruptive during his latest stint in jail. In August 2020, Bulut was convicted in Burwood Local Court for breaching a conditional release order imposed for behaving in an offensive manner, and sentenced to another two-year CRO. At the same time he was placed on a third CRO for two years for stalking, destroying or damaging property and contravening an apprehended violence order. Bulut was also sentenced to eight months in prison, to be served by way of intensive correction order for common assault and made the subject of a two-year AVO. In January the next year, Bulut was convicted and fined $600 for possessing a prescribed restricted substance after he failed to appear at Sutherland Local Court. In November 2021, he was convicted and fined $330 for using offensive language by a magistrate at Sutherland Local Court. Two months later Bulut was behind bars on charges of wielding a knife in a public place, having breached the community correction order for contravening an AVO and destroying or damaging property. In May 2022 he was jailed for a minimum of four months, backdated to January, and fined $600 for those three offences after facing Central Local Court. That non-parole period had barely expired when, in July 2022, Bulut was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for assault occasioning actual bodily harm. That sentence was again to be served as an intensive correction order with the condition that he perform 80 hours of community service work and undergo an anger management course. The previous month Bulut had breached his bail conditions by using ice while awaiting various court appearances. When Bulut appeared in Parramatta Bail Court over the breach, he pleaded with magistrate Eve Wynhausen not to be sent back to jail. 'I wasn't aware of my bail conditions,' Bulut said. 'I thought I was just on parole, but there's still no excuse. 'I came out of jail with a drug problem... I don't think going back to jail is the best thing for me. I need to be out there and on top of my drug problem.' Ms Wynhausen allowed Bulut to remain at liberty under conditions including that he live with his father and stepmother at Woolloomooloo, abstain from alcohol and drugs, and follow a 9pm-7am curfew. In July 2022, Bulut was also charged with intimidating his father Suleyman Bulut and stepmother Nicola Papadopoulos at their home. Those charges, which Bulut was set to defend, were finally withdrawn in January 2023 when a hearing could not go ahead because police were unable to tender any evidence. Downing Centre Local Court heard a mistake on the police computer system listed the matter for mention rather than hearing. While Bulut's father had told police he would not be assisting the prosecution, his stepmother was willing to give evidence but could not do so at short notice. Bulut was taken back into custody on September 11, 2023 when he was charged with aggravated robbery and robbery in company. At the time Bulut listed his address as the Northcott public housing estate in Belvoir Street, Surry Hills - known locally 'Suicide Towers'. Police alleged Bulut was one of three offenders who robbed a man of $2,100 in cash, a blue Louis Vuitton wallet, blue Fendi jumper and Bose speaker at South Coogee. In June 2019, Bulut told the Daily Mail he was 'trying to put everything behind me and move forward' as he appealed his drug ban in an attempt to return to the football field The offences were said to have occurred between 11.30pm on August 31 and 3am on September 1 that year and originally included an allegation Bulut had inflicted actual bodily harm on the man. Bulut pleaded guilty to demanding property by force while in company at Downing Centre District Court on June 12 and will face a sentencing hearing later this month. He will also face sentencing for an offence of larceny, while the charge of robbery in company will not proceed on the indictment. Bulut was remanded in custody at the time of his arrest until bail was granted under extremely strict conditions in October 2024. His bail was revoked a month later. In May this year, Bulut had two charges of contravening a restraining order and one of stalking dismissed in Downing Centre Local Court.
