A LOAN agreement dated August 2006, which was signed by a developer and a former councillor accused of accepting corrupt payments, was created in January 2007, according to gardaí.
The fourth day of the trial of Fred Forsey jnr (43), of Coolagh Road, Abbeyside, Dungarvan, Co Waterford, heard that gardaí visited a Dublin law firm in 2009 and found documents which had been created on January 9th, 2007.
Mr Forsey denies receiving €60,000, €10,000 and €10,000 in three corrupt payments from a developer in 2006. It is alleged he got them because of his support for a land rezoning.
The two documents, found on a computer mainframe in the solicitors’ office, were identical, Det Sgt Shay Keevans told Waterford Circuit Court, apart from having different spellings of Mr Forsey’s name: Forcey on one and Forcy on the other.
“The document was not created until January 9th, 2007,” Det Sgt Keevans said.
It was the same loan agreement as had been handed to Supt Tom O’Grady during the investigation by the property developer alleged to have given Mr Forsey the corrupt payments, but without the dates and signatures which were handwritten on the document given to the superintendent.
That document was signed by both men and dated August 20th, 2006, the court heard.
The first payment made to Mr Forsey, of €60,000, was on August 25th, 2006, while the others were made in October and December.
“That document was a loan agreement document purportedly signed on August 20th, 2006,” Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, said.
A third document found on the computer was created on June 10th, 2008, and was a scan of the signed loan agreement.
John Phelan SC, defending, suggested that the documents might have been downloaded onto the computer from a memory stick, having been created earlier.
An email sent to the developer’s secretary on January 9th, 2007 – the same date the loan documents are alleged to have been “created” on the computer – mentioned a “draft loan agreement” which was “relating to the Fred Forsey matter”.
The email’s author asked: “Do I have his surname correct?” and asked if they needed to have bank account numbers for repayment.
Det Sgt Keevans told the court he obtained a printout of the mobile telephone records of both Mr Forsey and the developer.
On the date of the last payment to Mr Forsey, December 22nd, Mr Forsey rang the developer’s number 48 times and sent one text message before the developer returned the call at 4.44pm.
That date was also the one on which Mr Forsey’s wife, Jenny Forsey, from whom he was then separated, “threatened” to go to the Garda about his dealings with the developer if he did not pay her back €10,000 which she had lent him.
An anonymous witness from the Criminal Assets Bureau, described as “Financial Analyst Number Two,”, said he accompanied gardaí to the Dublin solicitors’ offices when they wanted to view the computer documents.
He had “no reason to believe” the loan agreement documents were not created on January 9th, 2007, he said.
The court heard that Mr Forsey told gardaí that, when he went to the developer in December 2006 asking for a third payment, he told the developer his house was on the market, the proceeds would be divided 50-50 between his ex-wife and himself, and he would use this money to repay the loan.
Asked in interviews in 2009 if the house was actually on the market, Mr Forsey answered: “No. I just told him that. I lied to him.”
The trial continues on Tuesday.