The liquidator of the Ely Properties Ltd (EPL), an apartment management company owned by businessman Philip Marley, has said that most of its books and records were "shredded" just prior to his appointment.
Aidan Garcia, the liquidator of EPL, also alleged yesterday in an affidavit that he had been forced to report Mr Marley to the Garda for "threatening and abusive communications, including threats on my life since the commencement of the liquidation".
Contacted in the five-star Ritz Carlton Hotel in Powerscourt where he is staying, Mr Marley said: “That is not true. I sent him a proverb which effectively said, ‘Bad men in one’s corner, the boxer loses.’ That was not a threat!”
Mr Marley’s actual email uses the word “dies” but the north Dublin businessman said he couldn’t remember the exact phrasing. Mr Garcia is a former boxer.
Mr Marley also dismissed claims that he had ordered his company’s files to be shredded. Mr Garcia’s affidavit states that an employee of the company told him this and Mr Marley had “not been able to provide me with a single piece of paper in relation to the company’s affairs”. This had, he said, “severely hindered the liquidation”.
“We had a paperless office,” Mr Marley maintained.
"From my investigations, it seems clear to me that Philip Marley and others, including Mr Marley's partner, Ms Dana Wilkey, have diverted company funds to their own benefit in the months prior to the liquidation. This has resulted in landlords not receiving funds," the liquidator's affidavit also states.
Ms Wilkey is Marley's girlfriend and a guest star on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
Mr Marley said: “We have never made a payment to Dana and, if we did, it was to Ad Will which is one of her companies. We have never made a payment to anybody that was not legitimate.”
Documents obtained by the liquidator show payments being made to Ad Will. Mr Marley said he could not recall what these payments were for.
The liquidator’s affidavit relating to EPL was opened in the High Court yesterday as part of a case relating to properties in the Steelworks on Foley Street.
Various landlords owned the properties which Ely was supposed to manage and collect rents on from the Catholic Housing Aid Society, which placed aged or vulnerable people there as tenants.
In an affidavit, Maurice Ginty, an administrator working for the Catholic Housing Aid Society, said that from August 29th, 2012, the owners of the apartments in the Steelworks on Foley Street in Dublin began to complain that "Ely had apparently been failing to discharge rents to them".
“Ely was in almost constant and complete breach of its obligations to maintain the apartments and our reports of matters that required urgent repair were ignored to the extent that we had to carry out our own emergency repairs at our own expense in many instances, lest the apartments become uninhabitable for our residents,” he alleged. Mr Marley denied this.
Mr Justice Peter Charleton said the “true origin” of the problems for the landlords was not its liquidator or the housing aid society but the former ownership of EPL.
He said that it was a “regrettable situation” for all landlords who include an 82-year old widow.
