Darragh MacAnthony in court over MRI claims
Holiday property mogul Darragh MacAnthony appeared in a Spanish court yesterday to answer charges that he never delivered furniture packs worth £400,000 to 51 customers.
The 36-year-old Irish multi-millionaire and chairman of Peterborough United was summonsed by the Marbella criminal court after the customers filed a complaint against him and his company, MacAnthony Realty International.
Lawyer Antonio Flores said the company had acted “in a disgraceful manner”, adding: “They never filed for insolvency in Spain. They simply disappeared.”
Records show that the former holiday home giant moved its registered premises to a ghost office in Madrid where it was placed under the management of a non-trading Peruvian company run by a 90-year-old man.
MacAnthony denies the accusations and has blamed the credit crunch, which forced several of MRI’s furniture suppliers to fold, and has called the legal action as a “ridiculous suit”.
The Spanish judge will decide whether MacAnthony and the five other defendants should face the charges of “misappropriation of funds and theft by swindle”.
Damages for Italian holiday home fraud victims
Reported by BBC Ireland
20 April 2012 Last updated at 13:03
Three NI families who bought holiday homes which were never built, have been awarded damages against an Italian lawyer.
Gabriele Giambrone did the conveyancing work on the sale of apartments in Calabria in southern Italy.
The families paid deposits five years ago, but then discovered that the land where the apartments were to be built was earmarked for agriculture.
Mr Giambrone settled the case at the High Court in Belfast on Friday.
Sharon and George Moore won £77,105, Robert Crawford won £64,137, and Joseph and Patricia Plant won £75,600.
Another 12 people from Northern Ireland who bought property in the same development in Calabria are also suing Mr Giambrone.
The lawyer is also facing legal action from another 50 families from Northern Ireland who were sold holiday homes elsewhere in Italy.
MRISG Comment:
- It appears that one way forward for Victims of MRI Realty International is to sue the lawyers who collaborated with MRI and Developers…. Look out Martinez Enhevarria, Emily Lemoniati and others who conspired with Darragh MacAnthony. It is worthy of notice MacAnthony has now folded most of his international web of MRI companies and is now the Chairman of Peterborough Football Club.
- Comment on the Private MRISG Members Only Forum: “We will not rest until justice is done.” The MRISG researchers believe that the whole MRI scam could amount to damages to victims of over 100 million Euros.
- Despite MacAnthony’s robust denials on his personal blog, MRI Directors, MacAnthony, Pickering, Fernando, Shaw, OCallahan & Liggan have been ordered to appear before a Judge in Marbella this coming week – Read More…
Peterborough ET Censor Legitimate Comment….
Followers of this Blog will know that the Peterborough Evening Telegreph have continually been shamed for refusing to publish any news articles or stories which paint Darragh MacAnthony as anything less than a saint. On March 30th they did publish a story about him refusing to pay rent for his soccer stadium, although not particularly negative it sparked an online debate on their comments section of the website which ran to 3 pages.
Image Host www.ticket4football.com
The story began when MacAnthony, apparently, refused to pay £500,000 rent for the soccer stadium owned by Peterborough Council where Peterborough United play. This outburst was reported when Phil Adlam, the press officer for Posh, tweeted from the meeting: “Darragh has said he is not going to pay anymore rent on the stadium. feels it is too much. conversation ongoing with the council.” However, the flow of comments rapidly moved to the speculations about why he was making this stand. Some speculated that he was looking for a way out of the club and could blame the council for their intransigence connected to the stadium. Others speculated he had run out of money and others commented that he was appearing in court in Spain so was about to ‘do a runner….’ Interestingly many of the comments were complaining their comments had already been removed.
However, by April 2nd all the comments had all been removed from their website and no further comments were allowed. It looks like a retrospective restriction on the Freedom of speech? A favoured tactic of MacAnthony: kill any negative comment by threatening everybody with legal action and putting out his own bias press releases. Why did Peterborough Evening Times remove the comments?
Could this be just another reason MacAnthony is not worthy of being a Soccer Chairman?
Censorship of the press, by whatever means, is a direct breach of the freedom of expression and speech, it makes people wonder who owns their papers and who owns the news… Does MacAnthony own this paper or has he some unhealthy hold over them? It also appears that their editor has no stomach for real stories or the truth and probably has no real reason to be an editor in the media format: could it now be time to retire and tend his garden. Or has he just been bought?
An eagle eyed MRISG member noticed this:
MacAnthony later Tweeted: Darragh MacAnthony @DMAC102
“I have lot of time for Swanny but Im not happy with his employers for that crap in paper today & way it was put across etc.Bang out of order“.
If only the paper would publish the whole truth about this man and his supposed support of their soccer club….. The supporters would be chanting in the streets for him to resign as Chairman.
Maybe MacAnthony will try and have this blog shut down too, for telling the truth…. Oh he has been trying for 3 years and failed…
Be aware that the MRISG, Administrators and Host can not be held responsible for the personal views of posters on this BLOG. Remember you are personally responsible for any comments you post on this BLOG.
