KEVIN HALLIGEN - Pleads GUILTY

Poe wrote:

PeterMac wrote:
There is that moment when the victim realises that part of the crime involves their own negligence....

Aiyoyo wrote:My eyes tricked me.  I read it as "ordered to leave US "expeditiously" by a "FedEx" judge!

bobbin wrote:He might even be praying at the moment, that 'due to a technical fault' his Fedex airplane will have to make a diversion to Ecuador.

As some of you are aware, I am not (voluntarily) a morning person and my pre-coffee posts  ...let's just say that they aren't always completely accurate *blushes*

But, I think I'm right in saying that Kevin Halligen has Fed-Exed himself to Ecuador wearing one of Kate's negligees

I hope it's not the black and whited checked negligee pants or the dogs at the airport might pick him up for something he actually 'didn't' do. off to make my coffee now.

Aiyoyo

Your comment:

" I read it was BK who hired him, not the Board of Trustees.

It would mean dragging the directors into mud, having their active or non active roles scrutinized and examined to the hilt as to the why, how, so on and so forth. The investigating authority would have to delve into how he was hired, who recommended him, vetted by who, sanctioned by who, financed by whom, how much was paid, scope, and so on and so forth. It would mean dragging accessory person/s into the frame for scrutiny; and the whole outfit of the PIs operation risks coming under scrutiny. Nah, I can't see that happening ever. "

Somehow I don't think any of this would have happened IMO. It was more by word of mouth/telephone call max.

If and big IF they go into the dock, the fund will become full scale investigation.

All the Directors, Trustees, Lawyers, Accountants, lawyers, everyone involved in the recommending, setting up, and running of the Fund will come under investigation.
The public have a right to know whether any of those knowingly helped them cover up or not.

Trust me it wont be just phone call/sms/fax type inquiry, it will be Select Committee from the Police who will look into that properly.
All their bogus pte detectives will come under investigation because they are the outfit that helps maintain the myth of the search to the public.
They were paid handsomely allegedly for doing very little ( if anything at all) and that in itself raises suspicion that needs to be clarified and in the Public interest to know.

If the ship in sinking, the (fraudulent) fund will implode on mccanns and quite a few more.

I guess if, and it is still a big if, they are done for fraud then assets will be seized for payback time?

Will this mean the end of Rothley Manor as this was paid for by the fund?

Then will they have to find a way to create another fund to cover payback time? If so, who will be responsible for ensuring the twins are aware?

“If you're a nobody, just imagine a lot of celebrities are in love with you. Narcissism is the best cure for attention deficit disorder.”
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Shrike wrote:I guess if, and it is still a big if, they are done for fraud then assets will be seized for payback time?

Will this mean the end of Rothley Manor as this was paid for by the fund?

Then will they have to find a way to create another fund to cover payback time? If so, who will be responsible for ensuring the twins are aware?

“If you're a nobody, just imagine a lot of celebrities are in love with you. Narcissism is the best cure for attention deficit disorder.”
― [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.], [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

 This is not a fact, we know only a couple of payments were made.  The second question is rather pointless as how could any person who is arrested for fraud start another fund?

Halligen is also being pursued by a number of fellow private investigators and former secret-service officers who say they have also been defrauded by him. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

'madeleine', by Dr Kate McCann, p. 284:

+++++++++++++++

"Several months later, one of the investigators subcontracted by Oakley contacted us to demand payment for his services. We had already settlerd Oakley's bill months before, but apparently the company had not paid him. He was not the only one. Over time several more unpaid subcontractors came to light. We were upset that, although a lot of hard work had been done on Madeleine's behalf, it seemed money provided by her fund might not ever have reached the people who had earned it"

SOME UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

1. What were these 'subcontractors' employed to do?

2. Did the Directors authorise the engagement of any of these subcontractors? i.e. how was Oakley's contract monitored?

3. Were the Directors aware of what these subcontractors were doing?

4. Are there plans for the Directors to sue Halligen (not forgetting Henri Exton, fellow Director of Oakley)

5. Have the Directors met the bills of these 'several subcontractors', having regard to the fact that they were engaged on behalf of the Directors of the 'Find Madeleine' Fund - in order to search for Madeleine?

REGARDING THE PERFORMANCE OF OAKLEY'S CONTRACT

From 'madeleine', p. 284

Oakley International came highly recommended. As the sums of money were pretty hefty, we agreed that our contract with them would be split into three phases with a break clause at the end of esach phase. This gave us the opportunity to terminate the contract at any of these points if we wished to do so without incurring any financial penalties. An independent consultant was also employed by the fund to liaise with Oakley and oversee the work they were doing. The first and second phases of the contract ran fairly smoothly. Oakley had put in place systems to gather, collate, prioritise and follow up the information coming in as a result of appeals Gerry and I made around the first anniversary of Madeleine's abduction. There is little doubt that at that stage progress was being made"

SOME MORE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

6. Who was the 'independent consultant'?

7. Why did s/he fail so spectacularly to monitor the contract properly?

8. Is s/he being sued for negligence?

9. Who 'highly recommended' the very recently-established Oakley International?

Did the Fund's lawyers do Due Diligence ?  (I wrote to them on this point and got no reply.)

I note especially the quote  "it seemed money provided by her fund might not ever have reached the people who had earned it"
Not "donated by the general public". It is now the Fund's money, to be squandered as the Directors choose.
Similar to the magical transformation of the tax taken from your income into Government money.

"Oakley had put in place systems to gather, collate, prioritise and follow up the information coming in as a result of appeals Gerry and I made around the first anniversary of Madeleine's abduction. There is little doubt that at that stage progress was being made"
Does that refer to the call centre which followed upon not a single call made to it ?

People who had earned it -  doing what, precisely ?
Progress was being made   - in what way, precisely ?

Irish conman to be deported over $2m fraud
Monday, July 01, 2013
An Irish conman who penetrated the inner circles of Washington DC society is to be deported from the US immediately, after being sentenced to more than time served for a $2m fraud.
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By John Breslin
A judge has ordered Kevin Richard Halligen to be deported, likely to Ireland as US officials are working off an Irish passport, though the man himself insists he is an Englishman.

If sent to Britain, he could find himself being questioned over vast sums of money handed to him by a fund set up to search for Madeleine McCann and for which little work appeared to be done.

Halligen, from a working class south Dublin family who spoke with a high-class English accent and told people he was a spy, pleaded guilty last month to one count of fraud, stealing $2.1m (€1.6m) from a Dutch firm that hired him to help release two missing executives.

It was only a fraction of the $12m total Halligen’s firm was paid to find the pair, employees of Trafigura, whose executives had been taken captive in the Ivory Coast after they travelled to the country in response to a tanker spill off the coast.

Instead of using the money to grease the wheels of the Capitol as promised, the 51-year-old within days bought a $1.6m house for himself and his fiancée in Crystal Falls, Virginia, outside Washington.

In court on Thursday, Halligen spoke publicly for the first time since his late-2009 arrest in Britain, where he landed ahead of being charged in a Washington DC federal court.

Appealing for leniency, Halligen said at his sentencing he takes “full responsibility” for his actions.

He said although he misused the $2.1m payment, the rest of the money did fund more than 30 contractors whom he said he hired to work on Trafigura’s case.

“I want to make it clear I was not sitting on a little fortune of my own $12m,” he said, telling Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly: “I’m in your hands.”

While prosecutors wanted a stiffer sentence, partly because Halligen was found in a civil court of stiffing business associates of $7m, Judge Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him to the maximum 41 months under federal sentencing guidelines.

Because he has been in prison for a total 43 months in Britain fighting extradition and in the US ahead of sentencing, Halligen is essentially a free man.

But the judge made clear she wants Halligen out of the US immediately. Halligen did not disagree and asked to be deported as soon as possible.

Halligen has also been ordered to pay $2.1m in restitution but has pleaded poverty, claiming he has no assets or cash.

Halligen was known in the top restaurants — in one he spent many long days, from 11am to 4pm, drinking the most expensive wine and constantly smoking cigarettes. In another he was known as James Bond for constantly dropping hints of his clandestine life as a spy.

One friend, later a senior official in the Obama administration, who admits thoroughly enjoying many Martini-filled hours with Halligen, described how he mentioned his intelligence newsletter to the Irishman, warning it would cost him $15,000 for a subscription.

“He wrote a cheque right there at the table for $20,000,” Noel Koch, a Washington insider since the Nixon era, told the Washington Post.

Supporters of the Madeleine McCann fund believe some of the £300,000 (€350,000) funnelled to Halligen after he was hired to help find the girl paid for those boozy days in DC.

Associates who worked on the McCann case cannot recall Halligen coming up with any idea of note, citing one in which he proposed hiring a man dressed as a priest to go angling for confessions on a pub crawl around the bars of the resort where she disappeared.

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© Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved

Poor Maddie, as many have posted before, she did not stand a chance.

@PeterM is there a professional body they would be answerable to re. due diligence aspect?

Tony B. is right imo to ask the questions - I wonder if there is a professional body who could ask?

Let us never forget that Mitchell said they were entirely satisfied with the work that had been done.

So what was the work ? It was clearly nothing to do with finding Madeleine.

QUOTE FROM IRISH EXAMINER:

One friend, later a senior official in the Obama administration, who admits thoroughly enjoying many Martini-filled hours with Halligen, described how he mentioned his intelligence newsletter to the Irishman, warning it would cost him $15,000 for a subscription.

“He wrote a cheque right there at the table for $20,000,” Noel Koch, a Washington insider since the Nixon era, told the Washington Post.

UNQUOTE

So 'senior Obama officials' are paid to enjoy 'Martini-filled hours' with serial con-merchants/fraudsters...??

sharonl wrote:Irish conman to be deported...

Well, the Irish Examiner at least is clear that Kevin Halligen is an Irishman - and with an Irish passport - even though Kevin Halligen says he is an Englishman.

But then, how shall we put it, Kevin Halligen has 'issues' concenring multiple identities.

The Irish Examiner headline does however bring out an Irish streak running through this whole case:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Kate McCann “My dad’s family were originally from Ireland” (‘madeleine’, p. 7)

Kate McCann: “We both came from ordinary, working-class families with Irish roots…Gerry’s father, Johnny, was from St. Johnston in County Donegal, just over the border with Northern Ireland” (‘madeleine’, p. 12)

Belfast Telegraph by William Allen – 11 May 2007

The Ulster-born aunt of missing Madeleine McCann last night revealed that the family believes the youngster is no longer in Portugal.
Phil McCann, who spent time with the child and her family on holiday in Donegal just four weeks ago, has launched a "chain email" campaign in the hope that photographs of the snatched three-year-old will be distributed throughout Europe.

She also hopes a poster she has designed will be shown during the Eurovision Song Contest tomorrow night.

Speaking as she pored over photographs showing a happy Madeleine on holiday recently in Donegal, Ms McCann said: "We don't believe that she is in Portugal anymore and need to get her picture and the story across Europe as quickly as possible."

The three-year-old, who was snatched from her bed as she slept in a holiday complex in Praia da Luz on Thursday of last week, had enjoyed an Easter break in the western coastal town of Dungloe.

Studying snaps taken in Gweedore during that visit, Ms McCann said: "My dad, John was born in Derry and grew up in St Johnston. I was also born in Lifford, and we left Donegal in 1967. Madeleine's father Gerry was born later. But we still have friends in St Johnston and we go back a lot.

"At Easter, 46 of us, family and friends from all over, spent Easter in Dungloe and we visited St Johnston."

Ms McCann, who now lives in Ullapool in Scotland, was born in Lifford- 20 miles from Londonderry - before the family moved to Scotland in 1967. The family still has close ties with the area.

Her mother Ellen, who was originally from Crolly, near Burtonport in Donegal, has travelled from Scotland to Portugal to comfort Maddy's parents.

Kevin Halligen is Irish, from ‘south Dublin’.

Martin Smith is Irish, from Drogheda, County Louth. In a statement dated 26 May 2007, Smith claimed to have seen a man carrying a child in a blanket. That was 12 days after his friend Robert Murat was declared an arguido. He made sure to tell the police that his friend was definitely not the man he saw carrying a child.

sharonl wrote:Irish conman to be deported over $2m fraud
Monday, July 01, 2013
An Irish conman who penetrated the inner circles of Washington DC society is to be deported from the US immediately, after being sentenced to more than time served for a $2m fraud.
[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]
By John Breslin
A judge has ordered Kevin Richard Halligen to be deported, likely to Ireland as US officials are working off an Irish passport, though the man himself insists he is an Englishman.

[....]

Supporters of the Madeleine McCann fund believe some of the £300,000 (€350,000) funnelled to Halligen after he was hired to help find the girl paid for those boozy days in DC.

Associates who worked on the McCann case cannot recall Halligen coming up with any idea of note, citing one in which he proposed hiring a man dressed as a priest to go angling for confessions on a pub crawl around the bars of the resort where she disappeared.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved

        

Tony Bennett wrote:QUOTE FROM IRISH EXAMINER:

One friend, later a senior official in the Obama administration, who admits thoroughly enjoying many Martini-filled hours with Halligen, described how he mentioned his intelligence newsletter to the Irishman, warning it would cost him $15,000 for a subscription.

“He wrote a cheque right there at the table for $20,000,” Noel Koch, a Washington insider since the Nixon era, told the Washington Post.

UNQUOTE

So 'senior Obama officials' are paid to enjoy 'Martini-filled hours' with serial con-merchants/fraudsters...??

 You missed out the word "later". He may only have joined Obama's administration after his liaison's with Halligen.

ShuBob wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:QUOTE FROM IRISH EXAMINER:

One friend, later a senior official in the Obama administration, who admits thoroughly enjoying many Martini-filled hours with Halligen, described how he mentioned his intelligence newsletter to the Irishman, warning it would cost him $15,000 for a subscription.

“He wrote a cheque right there at the table for $20,000,” Noel Koch, a Washington insider since the Nixon era, told the Washington Post.

UNQUOTE

So 'senior Obama officials' are paid to enjoy 'Martini-filled hours' with serial con-merchants/fraudsters...??

 You missed out the word "later". He may only have joined Obama's administration after his liaisons with Halligen.

You're right. Maybe those 'Martini-filled hours' helped him on his way to a top job with Obama...

Tony Bennett wrote:

ShuBob wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:QUOTE FROM IRISH EXAMINER:

One friend, later a senior official in the Obama administration, who admits thoroughly enjoying many Martini-filled hours with Halligen, described how he mentioned his intelligence newsletter to the Irishman, warning it would cost him $15,000 for a subscription.

“He wrote a cheque right there at the table for $20,000,” Noel Koch, a Washington insider since the Nixon era, told the Washington Post.

UNQUOTE

So 'senior Obama officials' are paid to enjoy 'Martini-filled hours' with serial con-merchants/fraudsters...??

 You missed out the word "later". He may only have joined Obama's administration after his liaisons with Halligen.

You're right. Maybe those 'Martini-filled hours' helped him on his way to a top job with Obama...

But 15.000 dollars for a subcription of an intelligence newsletter (which must be a contradiction in terms surely? ) - this man is telling us he sold intelligence to a third party not in possession of a US security clearance of any kind.
It's very typical of the con-man to overdo the thing. 15.000 was asked, 20.000 was 'given'. A real financier would have negotiated a reduction. That should have tipped this 'senior official' off.

tigger wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:

ShuBob wrote:

Tony Bennett wrote:QUOTE FROM IRISH EXAMINER:

One friend, later a senior official in the Obama administration, who admits thoroughly enjoying many Martini-filled hours with Halligen, described how he mentioned his intelligence newsletter to the Irishman, warning it would cost him $15,000 for a subscription.

“He wrote a cheque right there at the table for $20,000,” Noel Koch, a Washington insider since the Nixon era, told the Washington Post.

UNQUOTE

So 'senior Obama officials' are paid to enjoy 'Martini-filled hours' with serial con-merchants/fraudsters...??

 You missed out the word "later". He may only have joined Obama's administration after his liaisons with Halligen.

You're right. Maybe those 'Martini-filled hours' helped him on his way to a top job with Obama...

But 15.000 dollars for a subcription of an intelligence newsletter (which must be a contradiction in terms surely? ) - this man is telling us he sold intelligence to a third party not in possession of a US security clearance of any kind.
It's very typical of the con-man to overdo the thing. 15.000 was asked, 20.000 was 'given'. A real financier would have negotiated a reduction. That should have tipped this 'senior official'  off.

Might have tipped him off, but then he wouldn't have been able to bank the cheque, would he.
What makes me laugh about the bad boys getting their fingers burnt because their dodgy dealings made them deal with dodgy dealers, is that they got their fingers burnt... and then it came out in the open, so all that burning and dodgy dealing was to little avail.
I love Karma. He/she/it (helped on his/her/its way by staunch supporters and people who refuse to be compromised) always seems to hold the trump card, sooner or later.
It's just a matter of dogged persistence (those persistent dogs again) and time.  

Any comment from Pinkie yet ?

PeterMac wrote:Any comment from Pinkie yet ?

 For someone who loves the limelight he's suddenly gone all shy PeterMac......

PeterMac wrote:Did the Fund's lawyers do Due Diligence ?  (I wrote to them on this point and got no reply.)

I note especially the quote  "it seemed money provided by her fund might not ever have reached the people who had earned it"
Not "donated by the general public". It is now the Fund's money, to be squandered as the Directors choose.
Similar to the magical transformation of the tax taken from your income into Government money.

"Oakley had put in place systems to gather, collate, prioritise and follow up the information coming in as a result of appeals Gerry and I made around the first anniversary of Madeleine's abduction. There is little doubt that at that stage progress was being made"
Does that refer to the call centre which followed upon not a single call made to it ?

People who had earned it -  doing what, precisely ?
Progress was being made   - in what way, precisely ?

The generalisation of "progress" can be better understood if we know what's within the remit.

If the PIs were instructed only to gather and collate information and if that resulted in a compilation of 30 box files then that can be considered "progress" I guess.