A successful conman enjoyed a ‘riotous’ playboy li
A successful conman enjoyed a ‘riotous’ playboy lifestyle in the sun spending pnds stlng 1,000 a week pocket money, a court heard today.
(Thurs)
Lee Rosser rubbed shoulders with the cream of Spain’s Marbella society – entertaining friends to lavish meals, driving fast cars, jet-setting around Europes and filled his wardrobe with designer clothes.
London’s Southwark Crown Court heard the 31-year-old had listed his high living as ‘lifestyle expenses’ and ‘walkabout expenses’ in a bid to convince Serious Fraud Office Investigators his illicit fortune had been spent and he had no secret ‘pot of gold.
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His barrister, Nigel Milne, QC, told a confiscation hearing: ‘There is an enormously high level of living here.
But young men do that, playboys do.
‘Someone from a humble background finds himself like a little boy in a sweetshop.
‘There is an enormous arrogance at the prospect of being at the centre of attention.
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And he said of his jailed client: ‘He has had a few years of riotous living.
The Prodigal son has now returned a chastened man, and he is telling the truth.
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Rosser and two other jailed conspirators enjoyed a champagne lifestyle after pocketing nearly pnds stlng 3 million by duping investors into snapping up stocks of vintage bubbly and malt whisky.
A mixture of hard selling techniques and glossy advertising attracted hundreds of customers duped into believing they would enjoy an inflation-busting return when stocks of drink were auctioned.
But the deal went sour for clients on discovering they had swallowed a succession of empty promises.
Left with a with an increasingly bitter taste on discovering the alcohol was not the five star alcohol promised, the Serious Fraud Office were alerted an began an investigation into the two linked scams.
Rosser, Julian Blee, and Craig Dean, shared a total benefit of pnds stlng 2,973,974 through their dishonest enterprise.
Rosser and Blee, 32, each made pnds stlng 1,208,192 from the two ventures, and Dean, 35, pnds stlng 557,590 from the later champagne scandal.
Customers investing in champagne believed there would be a worldwide Millennium shortage of the traditional celebration drink – and were promised they would double their money as stocks of bubbly dried up for the so-called world’s greatest party.
Rosser and Blee were directors of an Amsterdam-based company, Dean was head of sales and later a director, who advised that those with huge stockpiles could clean up as they organised top auction house sales of thousands of bottles stored years earlier.
However, auctions at Sothebys and Christies never took place.
Instead, at the dawn of a new century, around 1,000 investors from England, Scotland and Wales, who ploughed a total of pnds stlg 4.
5 million into the project found they were duped.
It emerged that the champagne was worth a fraction of the price they had paid, and they had effectively poured their money down the drain.
Dean claimed he did not know the investment was a scam, and said he was working for the firm involved – the grandly-named House of Delacroix in Amsterdam, Holland – in good faith.
The court heard that the three men employed a hard-sell sales team at offices in Wimbledon and advertised in a succession of ‘lifestyle’ glossy magazines.
Dean, of Longfellow Close, Redditch, Worcester, was jailed for three years after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud between December 1995 and August 1998.
Rosser, of Strouden Road, Winton, Bournemouth, Dorset, was jailed for 18 months after admitting his part in the champagne plot.
He will serve that consecutively to the seven year sentence he received for a similar scam involving investment in ‘immature whisky’ – again investors were told of the benefits of cornering a market, and once again lost their cash.
Blee, of Marlin Road, Lewsey Farm, Luton, Beds, admitted his part in the champagne saga and was jailed for 12 months.
However, the prison term was made be consecutive to the four year sentence for his part in the ‘scotch’ saga.
The court heard the three men met when they all worked for a company Cavendish Hamilton enticing investment in whisky.
Dean was not criminally involved.
Once again the scheme captured a market, but similarly the spirit was worth a fraction of the price paid.
Originally sentencing the three earlier this year, Judge Robin Laurie said ‘gross lies’ had been told to deceive clients.
He said jail sentences must be imposed: ‘The clear message must go out to people like you who think they can defraud people here with impunity by conducting their business in the way you and others did in Holland or elsewhere.
‘A clear message that crime is never going to pay in the long run because you will end up where you deserve.
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Rosser maintains his only assets are property in Gibraltar worth pnds stlng 225,000 and garages he purchased in Wimbledon, valued at pnds stlng 25,000 two years ago.
He claims he has no interest in a Marbella apartment he gave to a girlfriend in spite of his assets being frozen and later sold, the woman buying another home.
And he said he lost pnds stlng 220,000 after making loans to ‘trusted’ friends when investing in their companies.
Rosser also detailed his lifestyle as proper expenses – despite claims they indicated a ‘black hole’ of funds.
But Jonathan Fisher, for the SFO, has urged the judge to take into account all the expenditure.
He describes Rosser’s tale as a ‘transparent fiction’ and maintains the court should rule that the defendant has realisable assets of nearly pnds stlng 1 million.
He said the explanations given ‘did not have a ring of truth about them.
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Mr Fisher added: ‘The reality is Rosser has failed to account for these sums.
He has an absence of (documentary) records, his own accomplished record as a fraudster, and a history of ignoring court orders.
‘I suggest he has hidden assets.
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Judge Laurie will make a confiscation order on Monday.
Should Rosser fail to meet it within a specified period, he faces even longer behind bars.
ends
