Michael Lynn argues €18m mortgage fraud conviction should be overturned

Former solicitor Michael Lynn is seeking to have his conviction over a mortgage fraud scheme overturned, arguing that the money at the centre of the case did not legally count as property under Irish theft law. The claim challenges the basis on which he was found guilty of stealing more than €18 million from six financial institutions during the Celtic Tiger era. Lynn was originally sentenced to five and a half years in prison by Judge Martin Nolan. His latest argument focuses on the interpretation of theft legislation, rather than disputing the scale of the sum involved. He contends that the conviction cannot stand if the funds in question do not meet the legal definition of property for the offence. The case stems from a series of mortgage transactions involving several lenders. The article describes Lynn as a disgraced former solicitor and says his conviction relates to the alleged taking of funds from those financial institutions. His effort to have the verdict quashed now places the legal meaning of property at the centre of the dispute. The report gives no further detail about when the challenge will be decided or what response prosecutors have made. For now, Lynn’s bid rests on a narrow but consequential point of law: whether the sums involved could be treated as property under the legislation used to convict him.