Forged signatures, ‘secret deals’ and a Brazilian prison: The full story of Michael Lynn’s Celtic Tiger theft trial

The multimillion-euro theft trial of former solicitor Michael Lynn had to be heard twice after the jury in the first trial failed to reach a verdict.

Now, 16 years after the alleged crimes and after two trials spanning a combined total of 24 weeks, the Lynn case is finally at an end.

The 55-year-old native of Crossmolina, Co Mayo, was convicted of stealing almost €18 million from six financial institutions 16 years ago at an eight-week second trial.

He was found guilty on 10 of the 21 charges against him. The jury deliberated for more than six hours across two days but were unable to agree on the remaining 11 counts on the indictment.

Newly renovated Ranelagh two-bed with for €695,000

---

Tom Moran Is a Big Fat Filthy Disgusting Liar review: Vulnerable exploration of a journey from self-hatred to self-fulfilment

---

Table 45 review: Bar off Merrion Square transformed into new tapas restaurant full of home-made warmth

---

Something has to give as Leinster and Northampton put double ambitions on the line

---

Lynn has been remanded in custody until his sentencing by Judge Martin Nolan on January 15th.

The first Dublin Circuit Criminal Court trial, which took place in the spring of 2022, was heavily laden with financial detail and was often dull until Lynn took the stand and alleged he had been involved in secret property deals with senior Irish bankers.

Lynn took the stand 13 weeks into this trial and “stunned” the prosecution and trial judge with allegations he had permission from the banks to take out multiple mortgages on the same properties.

[ Michael Lynn found guilty of stealing almost €18m from six financial institutions ]

Former Irish Nationwide chief Michael Fingleton loomed large in Lynn’s testimony relating to “secret deals” in which he alleged the banks permitted him to use the loan money for his overseas property developments.

Lynn alleged that Fingleton was involved in a secret profit share agreement with him in which Irish Nationwide gave him a loan but which he used to develop a site in Portugal, with Fingleton set to profit from it personally.

The former solicitor claimed that evidence backing up these secret deals, or “off the book agreements”, was contained on emails in a server that was in his practice when it was raided in 2007 and which was now missing.

His allegations of secret deals were dismissed by the prosecution as a “fabricated pack of lies” and “inherently implausible”.

However, after hearing evidence for 16 weeks, the jury in the first trial was unable to reach a verdict and had to be discharged.

The second trial got under way in October this year. Set down for a shorter period of eight weeks due to the fact that it was now officially accepted by Lynn that he had received the money, the trial still spent several weeks listening to evidence from bank officials.

Lynn took the stand again during the second trial and robustly defended the charges against him. In the first trial he spent nine days in the stand and gave colourful evidence of his 4½ years in a “hellhole” Brazilian prison, which was essentially run by inmates and where he said he witnessed a gay prisoner being beheaded. In the second trial he spent just more than three days in the stand, with less detail on his time abroad.

The missing server did not feature as heavily in the second trial, with fresh prosecution witnesses brought in from the Law Society and The Capel Building – Lynn’s Dublin office, a stone’s throw from the Four Courts – to give evidence on that issue. Its whereabouts remain unknown.

Lynn was extradited from Brazil in 2018 and has been on bail while fighting the charges against him.

Lynn (55) of Millbrook Court, Red Cross, Co Wicklow, was accused of the theft of about €27 million from seven financial institutions. He pleaded not guilty to 21 counts of theft in Dublin between October 23rd 2006 and April 20th 2007, when he was working as a solicitor and property developer.

It was the prosecution case that Lynn obtained multiple mortgages on the same properties in a situation where banks were unaware that other institutions were also providing finance. These properties included his €5.5 million Howth property “Glenlion” and multiple residential investment properties.

The court heard Lynn applied to three institutions for finance for the purchase of Glenlion and that he received more than €11 million in total for that property.

The financial institutions involved in the charges against Lynn were Bank of Ireland, National Irish Bank, Irish Life and Permanent, Ulster Bank, ACC Bank, Bank of Scotland Ireland and Irish Nationwide Building Society.

Anglo Irish Bank did not form part of the trial as it used its own solicitors and secured the first legal charge on Lynn’s loans.

The prosecution case was that Lynn, then a practising solicitor, was engaged in “a web of deceit” in relation to mortgage applications he made and that documents provided in these applications were untruthful.

These included statement of affairs documentation that purported to be from his accountancy firm, Kinsella Mitchell Ltd, but which contained a forged signature and stamp, the court heard. Nor did these documents set out a full picture of his financial situation, it was alleged.

The court heard that letters of undertaking provided during the mortgage applications and which were purportedly signed by a solicitor at Lynn’s law firm were in fact forgeries – signed by Lynn’s executive assistant, Liz Doyle. The court was told that the interests of the institutions were not registered.

For several weeks in each trial, the jury was brought through the particulars of each loan application in forensic detail, hearing from dozens of witnesses who worked in each of the financial institutions at the time and going through multiple loan documents repeatedly.

Lynn’s former legal executive, Doyle, told both trials that she signed Lynn’s signature and forged the signature of a senior solicitor in the firm, Fiona McAleenan, on loan documents under Lynn’s instructions. She said she did not discuss this with McAleenan.

Doyle said she didn’t ask questions because it was a “hectic office” and “there was a fear there” – a phrase she repeated verbatim at the second trial. “Michael Lynn would have been a nice guy, but there was another side to Michael Lynn that there would have been a fear factor,” she said.

She told the court she believed Lynn was going to register the various properties he had secured loans on.

It was the prosecution case that Doyle was Lynn’s “eyes and ears” in the office who carried out much of his paperwork relating to the loans. The defence said Doyle was simply not telling the truth, told completely contradictory evidence and could not be relied on.

McAleenan spent several days in the witness box in both trials – most of them being cross-examined in relation to her role within the firm. She categorically denied she was complicit in Lynn’s deception and said she was “horrified and disgusted” at such a suggestion.

The court heard McAleenan joined Michael Lynn & Co solicitors in 2004 as a litigation solicitor. She said she had very little knowledge of conveyancing and had no involvement of it in the firm.

She denied making herself out as partner in the firm, with the court hearing no partnership agreement was formally reached between herself and Lynn, although she was listed as a partner in the Law Directory and a memo was sent around the practice saying she had been made partner.

Aside from the forged signatures, McAleenan recognised her real signature on a number of documents, but said she did not recall signing them. She said she would sometimes sign documents as a practising solicitor in the firm, but that Doyle would bring them into her office for her to sign before taking them away again.

The court heard Lynn was struck off the roll of solicitors in May 2008 following an investigation by the Law Society.

No complaint was made against McAleenan following this investigation, the court was told, although a High Court judge found she was “careless” to have held herself out as partner in some of the documentation. McAleenan told the court she had expected to become partner and that discussions were “quite advanced”.

It was only in the final two weeks of the first trial that Lynn’s defence became clear. During his lengthy direct evidence, he outlined the “secret deals” he had with the bank, telling the court that he had an understanding with each bank that he could use the money from the loans for his overseas property developments.

He said the banks were aware he had mortgages out on multiple properties and this was “custom and practice” in Celtic Tiger Ireland when the property market was moving quickly.

Under questioning from the prosecution, Lynn named bank officials from each bank he said he met – or his property company employees met – to make these secret deals. They were allegations that Judge Martin Nolan later said “stunned” the court.

Rebuttal witnesses – some of the bankers Lynn had named – were called by the prosecution at the end of the first trial and they again gave evidence this year. They all denied having any knowledge of the real purpose of Lynn’s borrowings.

Lynn expanded his defence in his second trial, outlining how he met Fingleton in a Dublin hotel in 2006 and they signed a “memo of agreement” outlining that Fingleton would receive a stake in Lynn’s Portuguese property development project in return for the use of Irish Nationwide funds.

The court heard Fingleton is unwell and not in a position to give evidence.

In the first trial, Lynn gave lengthy evidence of his arrest in Recife, Brazil, in 2013 and his detention in a prison that was essentially run by inmates, with violence commonplace. It was like Game of Thrones, he told the court.

Lynn told the court he wanted to come home and answer the charges against him, but there was an issue with transcribing documents. He told the court he couldn’t resolve diplomatic issues when he was “under gunpoint in a hellhole prison in Brazil”.

“I’ve waited a long time to tell this story,” he said.

The prosecution case in the first trial was that Lynn “fled” to Brazil, that he fought the extradition process “tooth and nail” and that he could have come home at any point to answer the case against him. They said he avoided meeting gardaí and fled to Brazil in 2011 without their knowledge, even as they prepared to travel to Portugal to meet him.

Lynn’s wife Bríd Murphy also took the stand at the first trial and described how she didn’t know if her husband was “dead or alive” for five days following his arrest in Recife in 2013, and how they conceived their two youngest children during prison conjugal visits.

The couple, who have four children, are now living on supplementary welfare allowance and financial support from their families, the court heard. Murphy attended the second trial for the final stages to support her husband, but did not give evidence again.

In his closing speech last week, Karl Finnegan, prosecuting, told the jury Lynn was a greedy risk-taker who lived for the next big deal and pulled the wool over the banks’ eyes.

“He should not be allowed to pull the wool over your eyes,” he told the jury.

“It’s clear he lived for the next big deal,” Finnegan said. “He is still gambling but the gamble has changed. The gamble is you might accept his version of events.”

He said he believed what happened with Lynn was “very simple and straightforward”.

“He started off in [his solicitor’s] practice, he does well. Goes into property development, does well. He builds up a relationship with the banks, is a good borrower, he pays back his loans. He’s a perfect client. He’s a very, very capable and clever man.”

But Lynn got “greedy” and abused the position he had put himself in, Finnegan said.

Outlining the legal definition of theft, Finnegan said it doesn’t have to be permanent and can be temporary.

“I have no doubt Lynn wasn’t planning on taking €27 million and sailing into the sunset with it and disappearing. He probably was going to pay it back, but he got caught out,” he said.

Finnegan said “millions were to be made abroad” and Lynn was hoping to flip properties overseas and have so much money that he would be able to repay the banks.

“It doesn’t matter; it’s still theft,” Finnegan said.

Finnegan said it was “implausible” that these financial institutions across the length and breadth of the country were “in cahoots” with Lynn in terms of his borrowings and were facilitating Lynn in a “unique” way. He said it was completely unclear what benefits the banks were getting from such an arrangement.

He noted the witnesses from the various banks who gave evidence and denied such an arrangement existed, including one who termed it a “fairy-tale”.

“This case is about credibility,” Finnegan said. “You have to decide where the credibility lies.”

Finnegan urged the jury to use its common sense and experience. “If you do that, I trust the correct decision is reached,” he said.

In his closing speech, defence counsel Paul Comiskey O’Keeffe, said the jury verdict would affect the balance of Lynn’s life.

“That underlines the seriousness and solemnity of the decision you have to make,” he said.

He said Lynn’s defence was that in respect of one financial institution – Irish Nationwide – there was a profit share agreement with Fingleton, while the other banks were aware of the purpose of Lynn’s borrowings.

“If you accept the banks were aware, then there’s no theft,” Comiskey O’Keeffe said.

“Theft requires deception.”

Comiskey O’Keeffe referred to internal emails from Bank of Ireland that the defence received in advance of the second trial which he said showed the bank was aware of Lynn’s lending practices.

In his charge to the jury, Judge Nolan said that if the jury believed that Lynn had permission from the banks for the use of the money, then it must acquit him.

The judge noted this explanation was consistent with innocence.

“There’s no deception if each bank knew what he was going to do with the money. If you find that explanation reasonably believable, Lynn is entitled to an acquittal,” he said.

He said if the jury believed the State’s case that Lynn stole the €27 million by deceiving the lenders, then it must be satisfied of this beyond reasonable doubt before it could consider convicting him.

It will be almost four weeks before Lynn learns of his sentence, more than 16 years since his financial and property dealings were first discovered.

• Sign up for push alerts and have the best news, analysis and comment delivered directly to your phone
• Find The Irish Times on WhatsApp and stay up to date
• Our In The News podcast is now published daily – Find the latest episode here