Peterborough United boss faces fraud charges in Spain
APRIL 25, 2012 • Olive Press
By Wendy Williams
DARRAGH MACANTHONY APPEARED IN COURT IN SPAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME PHOTOS COPYRIGHT OF THE OLIVE PRESS
The disgraced property mogul is accused of taking tens of thousands of euros off nearly 50 British and Irish victims for furniture packs that never arrived.
The Irish football mogul was grilled by the judge in Marbella for two hours behind closed doors.
Arriving in a white Range Rover with two men, it is the first time the football boss has faced the music in Spain.
DARRAGH MACANTHONY APPEARED IN COURT IN SPAIN FOR THE FIRST TIME PHOTOS COPYRIGHT OF THE OLIVE PRESS
He was joined by his former chief executive Dominic Pickering, Sarah O’Callaghan, and Nicola Shaw, a former director of MRI Ireland.
Meanwhile, 90-year-old Fernando Arespacochaga, whose Peruvian company Inmobiliaria Vasco Peruana SAC took over MRI Overseas Property Group in 2010, also travelled over for the hearing.
None of the accused, who have continually denied the allegations, would speak with reporters.
“I’m sure you are a lovely lady but I am not speaking to you,” said MacAnthony.
MacAnthony Exits Court
It comes three months after over 40 victims travelled to Marbella to tell a judge how the football boss’ company MacAnthony Realty International (MRI) failed to deliver over half a million euros of furniture to them between 2005 and 2010.
MRI – which boasted an annual turnover of more than 100m euros before the crisis – developed resorts in several countries from its main base in Marbella, from where it sold the furniture packs.
The alleged victims – who filed a claim in Madrid in June last year – accuse MacAnthony, 35, of keeping 600,000 euros which they collectively paid for furniture packages for homes in Bulgaria, Turkey, and Morocco.
Meanwhile, Antonio Flores, the Spanish lawyer acting for the group, claims ‘many other’ customers are also affected and due to file further claims.
“The missing furniture is just one of the irregularities linked to the company,” he said.
Flores insisted an additional claim, totalling 15m euros, is being prepared on behalf of up to 200 British and Irish MRI customers claiming they lost large sums in upfront fees.
“Today was just the first step. The courts were gathering information and just listening to what everyone has to say before they decide how to proceed further,” said Flores.
“There is also another claim that will be made in the not too distant future that is substantial.”
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”.
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…
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