Judgment against couple whose assets frozen after gold mystery

A judgment for unpaid rent has been granted against a couple whose assets were frozen following allegations that gold they had sold to a bullion dealer mysteriously turned to worthless copper plate overnight.

Barrister Una Cassidy told Judge Jacqueline Linnane in the Circuit Civil court today that the Private Residential Tenancies Board knew nothing of a part payments offer by Peter Osa Amadasun and his wife Lorna.

She said the couple, of Aldermere Drive, Clonsilla, Co Dublin, owed just under €2,000 rent to landlord Edward Lynam who had obtained a determination for that amount from the Board.

Judge Linnane told the couple that the reason a small banker’s draft from them had not been cashed was most likely because the landlord had not wanted the rent arrears to be paid in “dribs and drabs.”

The Osa Amadasuns agreed with Judge Linnane that their assets remained frozen by the High Court, a decision that had been made by Ms Justice Mary Laffoy three years ago in an action to restrain the dissipation of funds in bank accounts.

In October 2011 Judge Laffoy had been told by a gold dealer Sharna Ragonesi, a director of Stirling Jewellers (Dudley) that she had agreed to pay the Osa Amadasuns €104,000 for 2.9 kilograms of certified fine gold which had been placed overnight in a safe in her wholesale precious metal dealership store The Bullion Room, Bolton Street, Dublin.

She said she had retained a key to the safe and another had been given to a go-between dealer who had recommended the deal with the Osa Amadasuns. Ragonesi alleged the second key may have been taken from the go-between and that the fine gold had been switched for worthless gold plated copper.

Ragonesi had told the High Court the Osa Amadasuns had failed to turn up for a meeting with her the following day and when she discovered the material in her safe was not gold she had tried to stop a bank payment but had been told it was too late.

The court had restrained the Osa Amadasuns, then of Allendale Drive, Clonsilla, Dublin, and trading as PE Eamons Business Services, North King Street, Dublin, from reducing their money in any bank or institution in Ireland below €104,000.

Judge Linnane, granting their former landlord judgment against the Osa Amadasuns for €1,972.65 and costs, said the rent arrears could, if necessary, be paid when the High Court freezing order was lifted against them.