Disgraced former solicitor Michael Lynn has failed to have his five-and-a-half-year sentence for stealing more than €18 million from six financial institutions during the Celtic Tiger era reduced on appeal.
In a lengthy judgement delivered at the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, Mr Justice John Edwards said the thefts were perpetrated “cynically, knowingly and intentionally”, and Lynn’s culpability was aggravated by the breaches of trust involved in how he dealt with the banks.
He noted Lynn had brought his profession “into disrepute” and had effectively “leveraged” his status as a solicitor to facilitate his crimes.
He said Lynn had displayed “arrogance” and “hubris”, traces of which were evident “even to this day” in the way in which he had met this case, and the suggestion that because the victims were institutions rather than individuals who may have been insured against theft and fraud, the harm done by him was somehow “less significant”.
He said the trial judge was correct to approach the sentencing on the basis that there was a “high level of premeditation” on Lynn’s part in respect of the offending.
The former solicitor had displayed “limited insight” into the harm done and there was no finding of “sincere remorse”, Mr Justice Edwards said.
Lynn was jailed for obtaining multiple mortgages on the same properties in a situation where banks were unaware that other institutions were also providing finance. These properties included ‘Glenlion’, Lynn’s €5.5 million home in Howth, and multiple investment properties.
He had to be extradited from Brazil in 2018 after spending years resisting attempts to have him face charges. As part of the extradition agreement with Brazil, Lynn was to be given credit for the prison time he had already served.
Lynn (56), of Millbrook Court, Redcross, Co. Wicklow, pleaded not guilty to theft contrary to section 4 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud offences), but he was found guilty by a jury of 10 of the 21 theft counts against him following a second Dublin Circuit Criminal Court trial after the jury in his first trial in 2022 failed to reach a verdict.
The former solicitor was originally sentenced by Judge Martin Nolan to five and a half years in prison, having been convicted of stealing €18.1 million from six financial institutions.
At the appeal hearing last November, Paul Comiskey O’Keefe BL, representing Lynn, argued that not enough weight was given to the mitigating factors in the case, including the recovery by financial institutions of certain losses and the asset disposal by the former solicitor for the repayment of losses.
He also suggested that insufficient weight was given to Lynn’s PTSD from his time in a Brazilian prison, despite being acknowledged by the sentencing judge.
Delivering judgment on behalf of the three-judge court on Tuesday, Mr Justice Edwards noted that “regrettably”, the single biggest potential mitigating factor – a plea of guilty – was absent in this case.
The judge said appropriate allowances were made for the time spent on remand while in prison in Brazil and rejected the contention that not enough weight had been given to the mitigating factors in the case.
Mr Justice Edwards went on to say there was no error in the headline sentence, of 16 years, set by the trial judge or in the overall global approach taken.
However, the court found the sentence imposed had been “inappropriately structured” in respect of how credit for time served on remand in an Irish prison was treated.
The court therefore quashed the original sentence and reduced the amount of credit being given for time spent in custody in Ireland by three months, leaving a final sentence of five years and nine months in prison.
He imposed the same five years and nine months on each of the 10 counts, to run concurrently, dating from December 20th, 2023.
This will effectively leave Lynn’s sentence unchanged if the prison authorities apply the full three months’ credit for remission.
During his trial, Lynn took the stand and claimed the banks were aware he had multiple loans on the same properties and that this was custom and practice among bankers in Celtic Tiger Ireland.
He was extradited from Brazil in 2018 after spending four and a half years in a “hellhole” prison there. In the first trial, Lynn told the jury the jail was essentially run by prisoners, and he witnessed the beheading of a young gay prisoner.
