Sean Fitz arrested?

fontanalis

It's safe to say the arrest was a shock/surprise. With recent in the EU about states keeping up standards and efficient budgets would the arrest have anything to do with showing the EU that Ireland is trying to stop being a piss pot that's rotten to the core?

pah

Cyrus wrote: »

Problem with accountants aswell do we? what pray tell do you do Pah?

Aswell as who?

No I don't have a problem with accountants it was an attempt at humour, more so in my own head I suppose. No offence intended, my wife is an accountant & I'm a Garda.

nacho libre

bamboozle wrote: »

McDowell was excellent, his problem was he did what was he felt was right rather than what was politically right, hence his low popularity, if our current TD's shared his integrity we'd be in a far better place.

i felt the same until he took he took the politically safe route by backing Ahern when the right thing to do was desert him. to his supporters this was likely a political miscalculation rather than him putting his political position before doing the right thing.

anyway regarding Sean Fitzpatrick, it definitely seems there will be many keen to see it all blamed him.

Jip

So he was released, gardai to issue a statement later today.

Would I be right in assuming that he wasn't therefore charged and at best a file is being prepared for the DPP ?

Biggins

Jip wrote: »

...Would I be right in assuming that he wasn't therefore charged and at best a file is being prepared for the DPP ?

At a guess, I'd say you're on the right track.
It will still be a while before anything else substantial emerges as not to prejudice any case one way or another.

sceptre

If people like Mary Harney could keep their traps shut or mostly shut this time that might help as well. I suspect that Brian Lenihan has kept this somewhere in mind while not making public statements on this particular individual.

Kidchameleon

IMHO,

its just a show for the cameras, "show the poor feckers who are paying for nama that were doing somthing"

Nothing will come of this.

I hope im wrong...

Gekko

Kidchameleon wrote: »

IMHO,

its just a show for the cameras, "show the poor feckers who are paying for nama that were doing somthing"

Nothing will come of this.

I hope im wrong...

I'd say you're probably right. Plus there's the fact that the Anglo results look as if they will result in a massive recapitalisation using taxpayers' money.

Will all ministers be back in the country at that stage I'm wondering?

I wonder will Enda Kenny get back on his high horse about Anglo again after saying that the public will revolt if more money goes into it?

There's a strong argument that all the time that it's taken to get anywhere with this has given the developers more than enough time to get rid of alot of paperwork that proves they've been up to no good and to transfer alot of assets out of their own names and to cover up anything else as best they can.

They probably have it right in the US where they bring in the perps immediately and then ask questions and compile the evidence as necessary from everything they find.

transylman

Kidchameleon wrote: »

IMHO,

its just a show for the cameras, "show the poor feckers who are paying for nama that were doing somthing"

Nothing will come of this.

I hope im wrong...

Going by past experience there's not a hope in hell anything serious will happen to seanie. Given that he was head of anglo, the FF bank, the most he can expect is a light slap on the wrists and a token fine, in a process that will be dragged out over many years.

maynooth_rules

Kidchameleon wrote: »

IMHO,

its just a show for the cameras, "show the poor feckers who are paying for nama that were doing somthing"

Nothing will come of this.

I hope im wrong...

Nail on the head. They brought him in for questioning and searched his house now. What in gods name did they expect to find at his house now. It was over a year ago they should have been doing this. Most likely a PR stunt and the Irish electorate are so gullable that you can probably expect a rise for Fianna Fail in the next poll

Mr.Micro

transylman wrote: »

Going by past experience there's not a hope in hell anything serious will happen to seanie. Given that he was head of anglo, the FF bank, the most he can expect is a light slap on the wrists and a token fine, in a process that will be dragged out over many years.

Its all just an exercise for the public/voters to see that Fitzpatrick is being questioned, a PR stunt. If it was an ordinary citizen with an outstanding TV licence then there would be charges. A few million Euro and a a few billions ah sure its nothing between friends. He probably refused to answer any questions unless he was paid. They probably even gave him the best cell.

jmayo

As a few posters have mentioned or alluded to, isn't it slightly ironic that they finally go and talk to guy a week before the results are goign to show how bad the losses are at Anglo and thus how much it will cost the taxpayers.

When did he resign as chairman, when did the personal loans movements come out, when did the golden circle scheme become public, when did the IL&P rent a deposit scheme become public ?
Yet it has taken until now for him to be dragged in for questioning. :rolleyes:

The whole thing stinks.
They will compile a file for the DPP, they might press some charges and slap a fine on him, but the chances of seanie ever serving time for anything is slim.

themont85

I'd rather see justice done here than a trial been rushed to appease the baying pessimistic souls here and failing.

walshb

Two things stood out for me yesterday watching Seannie leave Bray Station; one, he is the spit of Mr John Gilligan, and two, the car that picked him up, a VW 01 Golf? This was arranged so as not to draw too much attention to his lavish wealth. He's looking to display a less than wealthy image to maybe gain some support.

kippy

walshb wrote: »

Two things stood out for me yesterday watching Seannie leave Bray Station; one, he is the spit of Mr John Gilligan, and two, the car that picked him up, a VW 01 Golf? This was arranged so as not to draw too much attention to his lavish wealth. He's looking to display a less than wealthy image to maybe gain some support.

Apart from the house which is probably untouchable as it is in the family name, I believe he is screwed for cash.
His main "assets" I believe were his shares in Anglo which were worth 90mil at the height.
The bank are now after him for 70 mill which he appears not to be able to repay. Perhaps that Golf is as good as it gets for him now.

walshb

kippy wrote: »

Apart from the house which is probably untouchable as it is in the family name, I believe he is screwed for cash.
His main "assets" I believe were his shares in Anglo which were worth 90mil at the height.
The bank are now after him for 70 mill which he appears not to be able to repay. Perhaps that Golf is as good as it gets for him now.

C'mon, don't tell me that Seannie is resigned to being picked up in a 2001 Golf?

I know he may well be under pressure, but this lad is a wealthy man. The "trick" with the car was too obvious, at least to me.

yoshytoshy

kippy wrote: »

Apart from the house which is probably untouchable as it is in the family name, I believe he is screwed for cash.
His main "assets" I believe were his shares in Anglo which were worth 90mil at the height.
The bank are now after him for 70 mill which he appears not to be able to repay. Perhaps that Golf is as good as it gets for him now.

The bloke has a €200K car.

rockonollie

Jip wrote: »

So he was released, gardai to issue a statement later today.

Would I be right in assuming that he wasn't therefore charged and at best a file is being prepared for the DPP ?

judging from the garda press releases, they have more people targeted for arrest and questioning. Most likely gathering as much testimonies as possible so they can bring solid cases for conviction to the DPP

hopefully non of these guys skip town while the investigation is ongoing.

Cyrus

walshb wrote: »

C'mon, don't tell me that Seannie is resigned to being picked up in a 2001 Golf?

I know he may well be under pressure, but this lad is a wealthy man. The "trick" with the car was too obvious, at least to me.

the car is his sons and seanie himself has been seen in a passat for the past year

id imagine family home aside he is broke

Liam Byrne

Cyrus wrote: »

id imagine family home aside he is broke

That's what happens to irresponsible dodgy gamblers.

Unfortunately, it's what happens in this country to decent hardworking people too, as a direct result.

walshb

Cyrus wrote: »

the car is his sons and seanie himself has been seen in a passat for the past year

id imagine family home aside he is broke

And my point is that this is all part of the plan with Seannie.

He doesn't want to be seen now to be swanning around in absolute luxury, hard neck
or not, the man isn't stupid. This is all part of an act.

Broke? C'mon, are you gonna' fall for that one? These people are never broke.
Don't think for a second that this guy is driving around in a "banger" because he has to.

BTW, he did kiss the person who picked him up in the 2001 "banger". That told me it was the Wife/girlfriend driving.

Sand

Seanie needs to call Brian Dobson for a Bertie Special...a tearful "maybe if I had made a bit more money....sob" ought to do wonders for his PR.

As it is people may have to recognise that Seanie might not actually have done anything illegal under Irish law. Corrupt or reckless, yes, illegal no. Look at the Fyffes case - its okay to engage in insider trading so long as you believed it was okay at the time.

So long as Seanie believed he was doing the right thing at the time, regardless of negligence, he is probably bullet proof.

donkey balls

shane ross said on the last word that fitzpatrick gets a 10,000e pension from Anglo a week,dont know about you guys but i would be struggling to live on that:rolleyes: i mean biz class seats to the US cost about 5k return:eek:

walshb

donkey balls wrote: »

shane ross said on the last word that fitzpatrick gets a 10,000e pension from Anglo a week,dont know about you guys but i would be struggling to live on that:rolleyes: i mean biz class seats to the US cost about 5k return:eek:

Yeah, in a couple of weeks he could get rid of that VW 2001 and buy a decent car....

pah

Cyrus wrote: »

id imagine family home aside he is broke

Doubtful

kippy

donkey balls wrote: »

shane ross said on the last word that fitzpatrick gets a 10,000e pension from Anglo a week,dont know about you guys but i would be struggling to live on that:rolleyes: i mean biz class seats to the US cost about 5k return:eek:

Thats interesting - however is is at least 70 mill in debt.....you'd assume that 10K wouldnt go far in covering that.....
Not feeling sorry for the guy or anything like that, but I do believe he is, barring the house, broke, debts taken into account.

IrishTonyO

Have a look here, his shares in the oil field are still worth a lot and are not part of the €70 million Anglo is suing him for

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/0320/1224266710923.html

kippy

IrishTonyO wrote: »

Have a look here, his shares in the oil field are still worth a lot and are not part of the €70 million Anglo is suing him for

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/0320/1224266710923.html

By the looks of it, the only reason they arent chasing him for that 30 stake is that he may be able to sell for a higher price in the next few years. It does however appear that "stake" is purely based on a 30 million loan from Anglo..........

Cyrus

Liam Byrne wrote: »

That's what happens to irresponsible dodgy gamblers.

Unfortunately, it's what happens in this country to decent hardworking people too, as a direct result.

how are decent hardworking people broke because of him?

Cyrus

walshb wrote: »

And my point is that this is all part of the plan with Seannie.

He doesn't want to be seen now to be swanning around in absolute luxury, hard neck
or not, the man isn't stupid. This is all part of an act.

Broke? C'mon, are you gonna' fall for that one? These people are never broke.
Don't think for a second that this guy is driving around in a "banger" because he has to.

BTW, he did kiss the person who picked him up in the 2001 "banger". That told me it was the Wife/girlfriend driving.

it was his son,

ive no doubt but that he is broke, apparently he has liquidated most of his assets apart from the oil field and he is 70m in the hole,

you can dress it up anyway you like, unless he has 80m squirreled away, he is broke

jmayo

themont85 wrote: »

I'd rather see justice done here than a trial been rushed to appease the baying pessimistic souls here and failing.

If bernie Maddoff had been operating in Ireland, he would probably have been dragged into NAMA and the guards would be just getting around to questioning him one of these days.

Look at the way Iceland is handling their banking fiasco.
They brought in one a heavy hitter, Eva Joly the Norwegian-French investigator who led Europe’s biggest ever fraud investigations into bribery and corruption at oil group Elf.
She has brought in some of her previous teams AFAIK to aid in the investigation.
What have we done ?
Offered to have a behind closed doors investiagtion and some Garda inestigations that appears to question one of the biggest players in the mess two years nearly after the fact.

bamboozle

jmayo wrote: »

If bernie Maddoff had been operating in Ireland, he would probably have been dragged into NAMA and the guards would be just getting around to questioning him one of these days.

Look at the way Iceland is handling their banking fiasco.
They brought in one a heavy hitter, Eva Joly the Norwegian-French investigator who led Europe’s biggest ever fraud investigations into bribery and corruption at oil group Elf.
She has brought in some of her previous teams AFAIK to aid in the investigation.
What have we done ?
Offered to have a behind closed doors investiagtion and some Garda inestigations that appears to question one of the biggest players in the mess two years nearly after the fact.

an open and transparent investigation would have serious repercussions for Patrick Neary, Charlie McCreevy, Brian Cowan & Bertie Ahern...unfortunately it will never happen.

bamboozle

Cyrus wrote: »

it was his son,

ive no doubt but that he is broke, apparently he has liquidated most of his assets apart from the oil field and he is 70m in the hole,

you can dress it up anyway you like, unless he has 80m squirreled away, he is broke

nice house for someone who is broke

Cyrus

bamboozle wrote: »

nice house for someone who is broke

well the guy is in his 60s, im guessing its paid for?

bamboozle

Cyrus wrote: »

well the guy is in his 60s, im guessing its paid for?

i'm guessing it is paid for but in the wife's name, no doubt Anglo never asked him to provide it as collatoral against any of his millions of loans he took out.

Cyrus

bamboozle wrote: »

i'm guessing it is paid for but in the wife's name, no doubt Anglo never asked him to provide it as collatoral against any of his millions of loans he took out.

Well i suppose whether they did or didnt surely only a fool would risk his family home?

ei.sdraob

sure why dont we bail him out if hes behind on his mortgage

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055859667

Cyrus

kippy wrote: »

Cyrus,
People are obviously very emotional about the last 24 months or so, sometimes more emotional than logical and as such people want to see others punished for the perceived wrong doing that took place. Believe you me, there was wrong doing, legal, ethical and moral in the past 10 years, from the very top of our political establishment (Bertie speaking of suicide for naysayers (http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0704/economy.html) to the regulators, bankers, developers and indeed even some by the man on the street.
The simple facts at the moment are that very few/no one has ever done time in this country have ever done time for such acts and that very few politicans have been caught red handed " on the take" so to speak.
Thats why when someone like Fitz gets arrested for questioning people are hopeful that at last some form of justice may be served.
I've given you three reasons why the guy is currently being questioned (who knows, there may be more reasons and indeed there may be more people to be questioned) and these three reasons all appear to be at the very very least extremely "shady" occurances which I would find hard to believe dont break some law. Hence people are "baying for blood".

I hope that there is some hard evidence against Fitz and those of his ilk who rode the tiger into the ground and for which we will all be paying for the next 10-20 or 30 years.

For me personally the chief de tat is Bertie himself. The guy sickens me and always has.
His lack of memory and absolute codswallop of fiction he spouted out at the various tribunals together with his now use of our tax payers money to swan off around the world doing book signings and speeches frankly sickens me. I dont however ever see him being brought to task for whats happened in this country. Indeed I dont see any of the other cowboys being brought to task either and this arrest may just be a smoke screen to take the heat of the Anglo losses this year.

So Cyrus, while you comments basicilly asking that people wait till the true facts emerge and that innocent until proven guilty are somewhat admirable (in that you are on your own on that) the blind facts are that Fitz presided over the biggest corporate loss in the states history and in that period some of the most shady deals in the states history took place.
He wasnt getting paid millions a year to be able to walk away without taking the hit for what happened.

so, Mr Fitzpatrick was acquitted, i had promised myself that i would come back to this thread when this happened

Tigger

Cyrus wrote: »

so, Mr Fitzpatrick was acquitted, i had promised myself that i would come back to this thread when this happened

You and your admiring that innocent until proven guilty crap.

tayto lover

Cyrus wrote: »

so, Mr Fitzpatrick was acquitted, i had promised myself that i would come back to this thread when this happened

Good day for them to announce that with the serious news from Manchester.

kippy

Cyrus wrote: »

so, Mr Fitzpatrick was acquitted, i had promised myself that i would come back to this thread when this happened

You were right. Good on you.
Feel better?

L1011

Heads need to roll in the ODCE for this.

CeilingFly

Its just far too difficult to prove criminal intent.

Not just here, but worldwide.

How many bankers wordwide have gone to jail?

In the USA they say just ONE got jail time. (10 months)



https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/how-wall-streets-bankers-stayed-out-of-jail/399368/

DellyBelly

I should be shocked at this but to be honest I'm really not....the elite really have their own rules...

blackwhite

CeilingFly wrote: »

Its just far too difficult to prove criminal intent.

Not just here, but worldwide.

How many bankers wordwide have gone to jail?

In the USA they say just ONE got jail time. (10 months)



https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/how-wall-streets-bankers-stayed-out-of-jail/399368/

From the RTE report:

Judge John Aylmer ruled this morning on day 126 of the trial that the investigation carried out by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement fell short of the impartial, unbiased investigation that an accused is entitled to.

He said key witnesses had been coached and the ODCE had failed to seek out evidence of innocence as well as guilt.

Instead, he said, they had made assumptions and tried to build a case against Mr FitzPatrick.

Making misleading statements to auditors should have been an easy case to prosecute. As a Director, Fitzpatrick would have been obliged to sign off on various representations to the auditors regarding related party transactions with the bank.

Someone in the ODCE really managed to screw up on this one, as the judge's comments make is sound like they absolutely butchered the case.

Cyrus

kippy wrote: »

You were right. Good on you.
Feel better?

not better but vindicated,

some of the comments when this thread originally posted were ridiculous and very few would listen to any reason or balance

Del.Monte

Good to see that the Golden Circle is intact. Will any heads roll for this fiasco? How much has it cost the taxpayer?

Captain Obvious

ODCE bit off more than they could chew it seems.

Kitsunegari

What an embarrassment for the ODCE. It's absolutely mental that we will let the same thing happen in the future and no additional safeguards or effective regulation has been put in place. Audit's will continue to be a pointless race to the bottom and directors will continue to have no ultimate responsibility over the actions of their government.

From a criminal justice standpoint we continue to embarrass ourselves with our ineptitude at enforcing the law effectively. Unfortunately, attracting FDI inhibits the progression of the law as we continue to pander to investment over regulation.

It's hard to lay the blame entirely at our own government as making the moves necessary to regulate effectively would be shooting outsleves in the foot when we are in a union with Luxembourg and their ilk.

Sam Russell

Del.Monte wrote: »

Good to see that the Golden Circle is intact. Will any heads roll for this fiasco? How much has it cost the taxpayer?

€60 billion in bail outs, plus interest, plus the visit from Troika. Then there is the cost of the austerity, the homelessness, the negative equity, plus etc. etc. etc.

Then there is the borrowing to pay the dole, and running the country.

About €120 billion in total.