Five Star director denied bail
Marcus Macdonald will spend Christmas Day in prison.
Five Star Finance director Marcus Macdonald has been refused bail and will spend Christmas Day in prison.
Macdonald, 69, had his application for bail denied in the Auckland District Court yesterday, where he and a fellow director Nicholas Kirk were this week sentenced to jail for theft in relation to the misuse of funds at collapsed financier Five Star.
Macdonald has been sentenced to two years and three months in prison and Kirk, 65, has been sentenced to two years and eight months in prison.
Macdonald’s lawyer, Alex Witten-Hannah, said he had had filed an appeal against the refusal to grant his client home detention.
A hearing at the Court of Appeal is likely toward the middle of next year.
Kirk is not understood to be appealing his sentence.
Regardless of any appeal, the pair are likely to be out of jail this time next year as they will be eligible for parole after serving one third of their sentence – approximately 323 days in Macdonald’s case.
The jail sentence is the first imprisonment for the Serious Fraud Office, which laid the charges, in relation to a major finance company collapse.
Five Star collapsed in 2007 owing investors more than $100 million.
The SFO has laid more than 100 charges under the Crimes Act in relation to related party lending that occurred between 2003 and 2007. Loans in question have a total value of $50 million, a large proportion of which is recoverable.
MacDonald and Kirk also faced secondary charges under the Securities Act and Financial Reporting Act.
The charges carried a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment or fines of up to $300,000.
Georgina Bond
Thu, 23 Dec 2010
Thu, 23 Dec 2010
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Five Star director denied bail
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