Michael Lynn's appeal over €18m mortgage fraud sentence dismissed by Court of Appeal
Former solicitor Michael Lynn has failed to reduce his five-and-a-half-year sentence for stealing €18m from six banks. The Court of Appeal upheld the original term with only a minor structural adjustment.
Court upholds Lynn conviction for €18m Celtic Tiger mortgage fraud
Former solicitor Michael Lynn has failed in his appeal to reduce a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence imposed for stealing more than €18 million from six financial institutions during the Celtic Tiger era, thejournal.ie reports.
In a lengthy judgement delivered at the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice John Edwards said the thefts were perpetrated "cynically, knowingly and intentionally." Lynn's culpability, he said, was aggravated by the repeated breaches of trust involved in his dealings with the banks.
Mr Justice Edwards noted that Lynn had brought his profession "into disrepute" and had effectively "leveraged" his status as a solicitor to facilitate the crimes. He said Lynn had displayed "arrogance" and "hubris", traces of which were evident "even to this day" in the manner in which he had conducted his appeal — including the suggestion that because the victims were institutions rather than individuals, the harm he caused was somehow less significant.
The trial judge, the court found, had been correct to approach sentencing on the basis of a "high level of premeditation." The former solicitor had shown "limited insight" into the harm done and there was no finding of "sincere remorse."
Multiple mortgages on the same properties
Lynn was convicted of obtaining multiple mortgages on the same properties without the knowledge of the respective lending institutions. Those properties included 'Glenlion', his €5.5 million home in Howth, as well as a number of investment properties across the country.
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) Act. He was found guilty by a jury of ten of the 21 theft counts against him at a second Dublin Circuit Criminal Court trial. The jury in his first trial, in 2022, had failed to reach a verdict.
Judge Martin Nolan originally sentenced Lynn to five and a half years in prison. He fixed the headline sentence at 16 years, discounted three years for mitigation, and subtracted a further seven and a half years to reflect time Lynn had already served in a Brazilian prison while awaiting extradition and the conditions he endured there. The judge also took into account 105 days Lynn spent in Cloverhill Prison, backdating the sentence to 20 December 2023.
Brazil relocation described as deliberate
Lynn had to be extradited from Brazil in 2018 after spending years resisting attempts to bring him before Irish courts. He had spent four and a half years in a prison there while extradition proceedings were under way.
At the appeal hearing last November, Paul Comiskey O'Keefe BL, representing Lynn, argued that insufficient weight had been given to mitigating factors — including the partial recovery of losses by the financial institutions and steps taken by Lynn toward asset disposal. Counsel also submitted that the sentencing judge had not adequately accounted for the PTSD Lynn developed during his time in Brazilian detention.
Mr Justice Edwards, delivering judgment on behalf of the three-judge court, acknowledged that prison conditions in Brazil had been "harsh" but said Lynn was, to some extent, "the author of his own misfortune" by relocating there. Ireland does not have an extradition treaty with Brazil.
"It is an entirely reasonable inference on the evidence in this case that his relocation to Brazil was expressly for the purpose of avoiding an anticipated future request for his rendition to Ireland from Portugal," Mr Justice Edwards said.
The court rejected the argument that insufficient weight had been given to mitigating factors. Mr Justice Edwards noted that "regrettably", the single biggest potential mitigating factor — a guilty plea — was absent in this case.
Sentence structure adjusted, overall term essentially unchanged
The court found no error in the headline sentence set by the trial judge or in the overall sentencing approach. However, it ruled that the original sentence had been "inappropriately structured" in the way credit was calculated for time served on remand in an Irish prison.
The court therefore quashed the original sentence and reduced the credit given for Irish remand time by three months, arriving at a revised final sentence of five years and nine months. The same term was imposed concurrently on each of the ten counts, dating from 20 December 2023.
Mr Justice Edwards noted this would leave Lynn's effective time in custody essentially unchanged, provided the prison authorities apply the full three months' standard remission.
During his original trial, Lynn had taken the stand and claimed the banks were fully aware he held multiple loans secured on the same properties, and that this was common practice among lenders during the Celtic Tiger period. The jury rejected that account.
Source: Irish Independent