A former property developer who faked his own kidnapping has been removed as executor of his late partner’s will.
Ms Justice Marie Baker made orders removing Kevin McGeever, otherwise Kevin McKeever, as executor of the estate of Siobhan O’Callaghan, who died in November 2013, and replacing him with an independent person, solicitor Jim Trueick.
In her will made in 2006, Ms O’Callaghan left the bulk of her estate, which had a net value in August 2015 of some €525,000, to Mr McGeever. She also left cash to a number of people.
The application to have an independent person appointed as executor was brought by a businessman, James Byrne, as part of his attempts to recover a judgment of €1.2 million obtained in 2014 against Mr McGeever and his company over a failed deal to purchase several apartments in Dubai sold by Mr McGeever’s KMM Intel Properties.
Mr Byrne expressed concern Mr McGeever might put the assets he will inherit beyond Mr Byrne’s reach unless an independent person was appointed to administer the estate. Mr McGeever’s past behaviour made him “utterly untrustworthy”, Mr Byrne claimed.
The application was opposed.
In her judgment, Ms Justice Baker said she was satisfied to appoint Mr Trueick as executor in this “unusual” case.
Her decision means Mr McGeever, who had been in a long term relationship with Ms O’Callaghan, cannot make any distribution of the estate pending further order of the court.
The judge noted the court was given medical evidence Mr McGeever is suffering from stress related illness and high blood pressure.
She said she was not making the order on the basis Mr McGeever has a conflict with the estate or has unduly delayed extracting the grant of probate. He had shown through his solicitor he was not in a position to now take steps to administer the estate should a grant be extracted, she said.
A claim by Mr McGeever’s solicitors that they are owed money out of the estate would have to be determined before any distribution of the estate was made, she said. Mr Trueick had power to meet any claim brought against the estate by Mr McGeever’s solicitors, she added.
The judge noted, in separate High Court proceedings against Mr McGeever, Mr Byrne had succeeded in having his solicitor Hugh Kane appointed receiver over shares in a company linked to Kevin McGeever.
Mr Kane was appointed interim receiver by way of equitable execution over shares in Belize-based Universal Assets Ltd, which owns a property, ‘Nirvana’, in Craughwell, Co Galway. The sale of that property will also go towards satisfying the judgment obtained by Mr Byrne against Mr McGeever.
Mr McGeever with an address at Clontarf, Dublin 3, has claimed ‘Nirvana’ is held in trust for his two daughters.
Mr McGeever pleaded guilty last April before Galway Circuit Court, and received a two years suspended sentence, for wasting garda time. He had claimed he was kidnapped by creditors who held him for eight months before he turned up on a roadside and was picked up by a passing motorist.