A solicitor alleged to be the kingpin in a pnds st

A solicitor alleged to be the kingpin in a pnds stlng 23 million game of cheat played by Britain’s most notorious bootlegger faces a retrial later this year.

After nearly 18 hours deliberation, the jury were discharged when they were unable to reach a majority verdict against lawyer Louis Glatt.

At London’s Southwark Crown Court, Glatt, 52, is alleged to have laundered pounds stlng 18 million profits for Ellis Martin who ran a massive drink and tobacco duty scam from behind bars.

He is also said to have used his professional status to get members of Martin’s gang to visit the mastermind after he was jailed for an identical scam in Brixton Prison, southwest London, and Weyland Prison, Norfolk, introducing them as legal clerks.

It allowed Martin to hold ‘board meetings’ with his lieutenants and the highly profitable illicit empire to again flourish.

But Glatt, of Chessington Avenue, Finchley, north London, maintained over a four week trial he was a ‘naive’ and ‘gullible’ pawn.

He said he was taken in by the smooth talking Martin and at the time believed he was making a series of international investments and property purchases for Martin’s mother.

The married lawyer, who practices from Mayfair offices, claimed he believed Martin’s parent Josephine Cruikshank, from Wood Green, north London, was a wealthy heiress.

And he told the court he believed he was helping Martin’s appeal after he was jailed in 1996 for a pnds stlng 5 million duty scam by gaining admission for colleagues who wanted to clear the prisoner’s name.

Glatt denied conspiracy with Martin and others to launder the proceeds of crime between October 1994 – when Martin was arrested for the earlier fraud – and January 1997 when Customs smashed Martin’s gang, known as the A-Team.

In December, Martin was jailed for nine years for conspiracy to cheat the Revenue, and conspiracy to launder the proceeds of crime.

Judge Christopher Elwen remanded Glatt on conditional bail – including a pnds stlng 200,000 surety – until his retrial.

A date for the hearing should be fixed on Thursday.

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