BASEBALL BAT-WIELDING CONMAN FACES JAIL
Conman who duped clients out of £260,000 & battered one with a baseball bat is facing jail WE NAILED HIM
A CALLOUS conman is facing jail after swindling investors out of more than £260,000 and battering one with a baseball bat.
Stewart Kennedy duped 15 victims in a pyramid scheme which saw them buy franchises in his firm – dubbed Rogues Inc by investors – while he spent their cash on foreign trips and a lavish lifestyle.
Kennedy, 52, told investors they would receive a minimum return of £4600 per month for 10 months on each £15,000 they invested.
He said the money came fromom debt restructuring services carriedied out for people and businesses within the post code area “owned” by each franchisee.
Kennedy made £ 247,405 selling franchises – then spent nearly £30,000 on trips abroad while many investors didn’t get a single penny back.
He visited the US twice in n 2011 and withdrew £144,266.85 5 from the company account.
And he used the same accountnt to pay for spending in clothes shops,ps, outlets in London’s Camden area,ea, supermarkets, jewellers and the Corinthian Club in Glasgow.
The US trips saw him visit New York and Florida and go on a Disneysney cruise. He also bought jewelleryy for his wife, tickets to Rangers games,mes, restaurant meals and trips to Greece.eece.
Kennedy also paid for his son’s £1400-a-month London flat fromm the company account and kept aroundround £25,000 in cash in case he neededd it.
During his month-long trial att PPaisleyil Sheriff Court, Kennedy denied he had done anything wrong.
But on Wednesday, a jury found him guilty of two charges of fraud and one of assault.
Sheriff Seith Ireland warned him he could be jailed for the offences, which he committed between April 2010 and August 2011.
He continued Kennedy’s bail and deferred sentence until next month for background reports to be prepared. The
sheriff said: “Crimes of this type are likely,likely very likely perhaps,perhaps to lead to a sentence of imprisonment.”
During the trial, Kennedy maintained his scheme was “the financial opportunity of a lifetime” for investors.
He said in evidence: “I believe I was grossly underpaid based on the hours I put in and the effort. I’m entitled as the owner of the company to take money to pay for bills. And the last time I looked, I don’t believe it’s a crime to go on holiday.”
Kennedy blamed the collapse of the company on negative press coverage of
him and his business dealings and said it had cost him £1.2million.
The court heard his Cost Reduction Services firm helped people and companies reduce their outgoings by restructuring their debts.
Kennedy sold CRS franchises through a firm called Easyearn for £15,000 each, which would see investors given £575 for every completed debt rearrangement made by CRS within their postcode area.
But CRS stopped completing debt rearrangements and Kennedy began paying franchisees using payments received from other investors. Plumber Stuart Caldwell gave him £15,000 for a franchise and £18,000 as a loan, which Kennedy said he needed to pay for an advertising campaign on Sky TV.
Stuart never received a single penny of his £33,000 back.
And the court heard that Kennedy attacked Stuart with a baseball bat when he went to the fraudster’s posh home in Quarrier’s Village, Renfrewshire, to find out what had happened to his investment.
David McDonald, prosecuting, told the court: “Stewart Kennedy built a house of cards, making false representations aboutout the success of the business, issuingsuing guarantees he had no intention of keeping, making others believe their franchises were a success by paying them with other franchisees’ investments and spending a fortune on himself and his family.
“He has swindled these people out of a substantial amount of money and, to quote Mr Kennedy from the footage from his promotional video, ‘You don’t need to be a rocket scientist with a calculator to figure that out.’
“This was indeed the financial opportunity of a lifetime – for him.”
Crimes of this type are likely to lead to a prison sentence SHERIFF SEITH IRELAND