A financial consultant who denies defrauding a former bookmaker claimed he was confronted on a Dublin street in daylight by a man carrying a gun shortly after he was told he was to be shot.
Mr James Alan Conlan also told Judge Raymond Groarke and a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that other sinister incidents happened after the bookmaker, Mrs Fiona Connelly, brought a man using a false name to his office.
Replying to his counsel, Mr Erwan Mill Arden SC (with Mr Ross Maguire BL), Mr Conlan claimed he had been accosted by the gunman near a newspaper shop on Baggot Street.
On another occasion he had been confronted by three men outside his Dublin flat. Mr Conlan (51), of Ardnataggle, O'Briens Bridge, Killaloe, Co Clare, is on trial on five charges involving £124,000 which was the property of Mrs Fiona Connelly, Caritas House, Ballybane Road, Galway.
He has pleaded not guilty to three charges of fraudulent conversion of sums of £66,212, £24,000 and £33,789 on dates from September 20th, 1991, to December 9th, 1992.
He has also pleaded not guilty to one charge of obtaining £24,000 from Mrs Connelly by false pretences and larceny of the £24,000 on December 4th, 1992.
Mr Conlan said the incidents began after March 1993 when a man calling himself Vincent Whelan asked to meet him at his office. When he arrived, Mrs Connelly was with him.
"He told me his real name was not Vincent Whelan and said I would never find out his real identity, but I know his name is Dermot Murray and I have his address in Galway," Mr Conlan said.
Mr Conlan claimed that at this meeting "Whelan/Murray" threatened him and made many threatening phone calls to him after that meeting.
Mr Conlan said Mrs Connelly told him that she had paid Whelan about £30,000 to help recover her money and £5,000 of that "was to have me [Mr Conlan] shot".
Opening his evidence, Mr Conlan claimed he had had a number of discussions with Mrs Connelly in 1991 during which she had said she wanted her funds placed outside Ireland.
Mr Conlan said that about this time one of his Irish clients was considering transferring his funds back to Ireland from the Isle of Man.
The idea of a "contra" arrangement was considered whereby the other client would make the Isle of Man money available for use on Mrs Connelly's behalf and be repaid by the use of Mrs Connelly's funds held in Ireland.
When this deal fell through, Mr Conlan said, it was decided the contra arrangement would proceed between himself and Mrs Connelly.
The only profit he would make would be the commission for investing £100,000 in the Isle of Man. Mr Conlan denied Mrs Connelly's claim in her evidence that the £100,000 was to be invested immediately in a company called Hansard International in the Isle of Man.
While waiting for the right time to make the Isle of Man investment for her, he used the £100,000 in his Ryehill Lodge Country House Hotel project near Killaloe.
Mr Conlan told Mr Mill Arden that during late 1991-1992 and into 1993, the investment markets went into decline and he and his associates decided that his business, Ryehill Investment and Consultancy, would have to be wound up.
Mrs Connelly completed an application form for a Hansard investment with him around March 1992 and gave him power of attorney over the £100,000.
In September 1992 she put considerable pressure on him after she contacted Hansard and was told she had no investment there.
He sought a £750,000 loan from a German finance company, Carfinanz, in late 1992 but needed £59,000 urgently to "prime" this loan. Mrs Connelly provided it through assigning her £35,000 Norwich Union bond and adding £24,000 herself. This and other attempts by him to raise money all failed.
Mr Conlan agreed he paid Mrs Connelly £7,120 interest on her £100,000 after nine months but had made no further interest payments. He also offered her security on her £100,000 on his Ryehill Lodge project.
The hearing continues on Monday afternoon.