British fraudster Lee Rosser was ordered yesterday to pay £519,000 (US$727,000) for his part in the Cavendish/Hamilton and House of Delacroix frauds.
He has until January 2003 to raise the money by selling his assets, otherwise he faces another three years in prison to add to his current eight-and-a-half year stretch.
Rosser made over £1.5 million (US$2.1m) from his frauds. Along with accomplices Craig Dean (35) and Julian Blee (32), he duped investors into believing that they could make 35 per cent profit a year by buying Champagne for the Millennium from the House of Delacroix.
He owns two flats in Gibraltar, a villa in Marbella, other London properties, and assets including a Cartier watch. His associates Steven Plumb and Alistair Miller worked for Hamilton Spirit Management before setting up Berkley Champagne Supplies Ltd, a millennium Champagne investment scam that is subject to an on-going investigation by the UK Serious Fraud Office.
Claiming that the villa belonged to his girlfriend, Carmen Osorio Guillen, from whom he said he broke up in January 1999, Rosser said he felt 'morally obligated' to give her a flat in Monte Paraiso, near Marbella because he had promised to marry her. He didn't transfer the flat into her name for 'tax reasons'. The presiding judge, Judge Laurie, refused to believe this explanation at a London hearing.
He claimed to have given Guillen power of attorney while he was in prison in Madrid, Spain. He said she sold the flat and bought the villa in Marbella with the proceeds. On a number of occasions Guillen visited Rosser in prison and also when he was on bail in England, bringing over his personal belongings. 'Anyone who believes this account [of the break-up] must be exorbitantly credulous,' Judge Laurie said.
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