Bankrupt, celebrity marriage in tatters, a fraudster with a drug conviction - Brent Todd's freefall from trans-Tasman rugby league star to home detention is complete.

Todd, 43, was sentenced to a year's home detention and 190 hours of community work for fraud in Auckland District Court yesterday.

After initially saying he would fight the four fraud charges, he and business partner Stanley Malik Champalal Wijeyaratne admitted the offences relating to hundreds of thousands of dollars of gaming machine money intended for amateur rugby.

Todd escaped a prison sentence in part because he agreed to give evidence against five of his co-accused next year.

Wijeyaratne was fined $50,000.

The sentence is the latest slide in a high-profile downfall for the one-time darling of Auckland's A-list who married Australian surfing beauty Wendy Botha, owned Viaduct Basin real estate, starred on reality television and counts many high-profile New Zealanders as his close friends.

Todd played 28 tests for the Kiwis between 1985 and 1993, and won Australia's 1988 NFL grand final with the Canberra Raiders. He banked on his celebrity status, renowned humour and distinctive looks - including a mammoth cleft chin - to build a television career. He married Botha in 1993. They had two children but split in about 2005.

At the time of the offending, from early 2000 to late 2004, Todd co-owned five pubs. These days, he is calling in favours from old mates for low-skilled jobs that enable him to live week to week.

Todd returned from his Queensland home to face the charges five weeks ago and The Dominion Post understands the former businessman has been washing cars at Matthew Ridge's Car-Fe and working as a bouncer at Cowboy Bar, which is owned by Leo Malloy, brother of Julie Christie, founder of Touchdown TV production company.

The home detention sentence includes provision for Todd to work. He will not be able to return to Australia till his sentence is complete.

Sporting celebrities Ridge and April Ieremia were in court yesterday to support him. Outside the court, Todd said he had returned to New Zealand to face his crimes.

"I'm here to face it, whatever happens."

Judge Tom Everett cut a five-year prison sentence to 12 months' home detention after giving him discounts for his early plea, agreeing to testify against his five co-accused and having repaid about $300,000 of the illegally obtained money.

The sentence could have been even lighter had Todd been able to make full reparation, Judge Everett said.

"You have been made bankrupt, you have lost your assets and you're now working in employment and there is no prospect of any further reparation," he said.

It was Todd's second conviction in just over a year.

In September 2006 he admitted his involvement in the "celebrity drug case", admitted procuring cocaine and was fined $500.

The following month, Todd told a women's magazine that his grandmothers had died, within weeks of each other, before his drug procurement court case. One died with a clipping about him stuffed under a cushion in her lounge. He said at the time he was hurt that his grandmothers died thinking he was potentially a drug dealer.

Around that time he was reported to be working as a labourer on a film set in Queensland, having declared voluntary bankruptcy in February 2006.

Five others - high-profile sports stars and administrators - will stand trial next year as part of the same fraud investigation for which Todd was sentenced yesterday.

Lawyers for ex-All Black Doug Rollerson, former Kiwi league captain Hugh McGahan, Touch New Zealand former chief executive Dick Arnott and former employee Geoffrey Thompson and a woman whose name is suppressed said they would vigorously defend charges.

THE GOOD DAYS

Todd played 28 tests for the Kiwis between 1985 and 1993, and won the 1988 Australian grand final with the Canberra Raiders.

Near the end of his sporting career, Todd, a prop, married top surfer Wendy Botha in 1993 and the pair had two children.

Television fame followed with Celebrity Treasure Island alongside A-list mates Matthew Ridge and Lana Coc-Kroft.

At the time of his offending, Todd owned five Auckland pubs and exclusive property at Auckland's Viaduct Basin.

- The Dominion Post