The former managing director of Jersey-based advice firm Lumiere Wealth has been sentenced to seven years in prison for charges related to selling fraudulent investments.
Christopher Byrne’s sentencing was delayed when his advocate, Olaf Blakeley, said his client was helping Guernsey authorities with their investigations into a company that was selling the same fraudulent fund.
He was found guilty of a range of fraud offences in September.
The charges related to selling a fund, Providence, which was later found to be a global Ponzi scheme.
According to the Jersey Evening Post, Byrne’s defence was that he “did not know the fund was fraudulent and was advising his clients” – who lost almost £3m ($3.8m, €3.4m) when the investment scam eventually collapsed – “in good faith”.
But the court found him guilty of “giving fraudulent investment advice about the risk level of the fund”, “withholding from clients that he had a lucrative pay deal in place with the fund”, “forging a loan document for £1m from a partially sighted elderly widow” and “misleading the Island’s financial regulator”.
Minor importance
During Friday’s hearing, crown advocate, Simon Thomas, argued that Bryne’s interviews with the Guernsey police had been only of “minor importance” and, in them, he had maintained many of the positions that he had in the trial – that “he was duped by the fraud’s global mastermind Antonio Buzaneli and had been acting only to make his client’s money”, reports said.
However, Blakeley said the value of the information his client gave to Guernsey authorities could not truly be determined yet as “he is not in control of the speed at which they proceed in their work”, and he should be given “substantial credit of 30% for his co-operation”.
In the end, jurors decided the assistance did not justify a percentage discount on this basis.
Byrne will be disqualified from working in finance for 12 years.
