A former South Yorkshire MP tried to submit fake invoices for nearly 30,000 in a bid to fund his "extensive cocaine habit", a court has heard.
Jared O'Mara, who represented Sheffield Hallam, is on trial at Leeds Crown Court and denies eight counts of fraud.
Prosecutors allege part of the fraud involved creating a false organisation called "Confident About Autism South Yorkshire" to try to claim payments.
Mr O'Mara, 41, and two other men deny the charges.
Opening the case for the prosecution, Mr James Bourne-Arton described it as a "very straightforward case of fraud".
"In 2019 the defendants Jared O'Mara and Gareth Arnold submitted a series of invoices for payment that were false - that is to say that the services that the invoices related to were a fiction and the defendants knew that," he said.
"They were deliberately making dishonest claims for work that hadn't been done in order to receive the money for themselves."
As well as submitting claims for 19,400 relating to the "fictitious" organisation it is also claimed he submitted two invoices totalling 4,650 from his "chief of staff" Mr Arnold for media and PR work that prosecutors say was never carried out.
The jury was also told Mr O'Mara, who appeared in court by videolink on Monday, submitted a false contract of employment for his friend John Woodliff, 43, "pretending" that Mr Woodliff worked for him as a constituency support officer in an effort to "generate money for the two of them".
The jury heard the invoices...
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