Fund fraudster gets 8 years

(CNS): Robert Christopher Girvan was handed an eight year prison term by Justice Alex Henderson on Tuesday at the conclusion of his two day sentencing and confiscation hearing. Girvan, the former director, trader and fund manager of a collection of four Cayman Islands based hedge funds from which he stole more than $19 million, had pleaded guilty to over 21 counts of theft, fraud and money laundering as part of a complex web of deceit, woven to disguise a spiral of losses suffered by the funds. As he awarded the eight years for each of the offences which are to run concurrently, Henderson told the court that in such cases the issue of deterrence was of “paramount” importance in the sentencing.

The offences all occurred between 2004 and 2009 when Girvan was the portfolio manager of a number of funds established by Naul Bodden, his business partner, and known collectively as the Grand Island Funds. Henderson said Girvan appeared to have had a free hand over the funds and had raised money from people to invest in the funds with the promise of impressive returns.

“His skills proved insufficient to the task,” Henderson said, as he described how Garvin began to misappropriate the money in the funds to try and concealhis losses.

The court had heard from Girvan’s own defence attorney, Ben Tonner, that as he began stealing from the funds in an effort to trade his way out of his earlier losses he was forced to conceal each loss with more misappropriation and deception, which led to the need to further conceal, and eventually the scheme spiralled out of control.

The offending therefore persisted for a significant period of four to five years and Girvan falsified bank statements and other documents, forged signatures of his business partner Bodden and transferred money through a complex web of accounts and commercial entities. Along with the millions of dollars which Girvan transferred into the trading accounts for the unauthorized trading, significant sums were also transferred to his personal accounts and used for real estate investments.

Of the almost $19 million that Girvan stole over the more than four year period, some $9 million was lost in unauthorized trading that Girvan could not bring himself to reveal to anyone.

Henderson pointed to the issues of trust in this case and the losses the investors had suffered as a result of Girvan’s major fraud. While some were sophisticated investors, aware of the high risk nature of such funds, some were not and he pointed to one investor who had trusted the defendant with her entire divorce settlement.

As he explained his sentence, Henderson said that there were no distinguishing features about Girvan’s particular offence compared to other similar cases that had been sighted during the hearing as authorities, but for the one notable exception of the significant sums involved.

Henderson said that he had to take into account all the traditional principles of sentencing, such as deterrence, safety of the public, punishment and rehabilitation but in this case, he said, deterrence was of paramount consideration. He indicated that he believed an appropriate starting point for the sentence was 11 years, but as Girvan had pleaded guilty he gave what he said was an appropriate discount, reducing the sentence to 8 years.

The judge also had made an order on Monday that more than $4.4 million be confiscated from Girvan after he realized his assets. He was given an 18 month time period in which to pay that sum back to the authorities. Henderson also made a deportation order for Girvan to be returned to Jamaica at the end of his sentence.

As he concluded his sentencing ruling, the judge pointed to the fact that Girvan had admitted his crime but had fallen short of offering his full cooperation to the police. Henderson said the investigators on the case, however, had done a good job in unravelling the complex web of financial transactions.

The FCU spent some eighteen months on the case, which eventually revealed the extent of Girvan’s crimes. Richard Clarke, the investigating officer, who was in court to hear the verdict, told CNS that an official statement regarding the result would be released by the RCIPS shortly.