The Court of Appeal has resentenced former solicitor Michael Lynn to five years and nine months in prison on each of ten theft convictions involving more than €18.1 million taken from six financial institutions.
The concurrent sentences replace five-and-a-half-year terms imposed by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court following Lynn’s conviction in December 2023. The new sentences remain backdated to December 20th, 2023.
Lynn was convicted of obtaining funds from banks and financial institutions in 2006 and 2007 through property transactions involving multiple loans, false financial information and solicitor’s undertakings that were not honoured. The jury rejected his defence that the lenders knew about and accepted what he described as off-books arrangements allowing multiple borrowing against the same properties.
The sentencing judge had selected a global headline sentence of 16 years, reduced it by three years for mitigation, and then allowed seven-and-a-half years for approximately four-and-a-half years Lynn spent in custody in Brazil awaiting extradition and for the harsh conditions there.
The Court of Appeal upheld that approach. It found the 16-year headline sentence was within the judge’s legitimate discretion given the scale, planning and repeated nature of the offending and Lynn’s exploitation of his position as a solicitor.
It also found the seven-and-a-half-year allowance for his Brazilian detention was generous and appropriate. Lynn had described severe overcrowding, violence, poor sanitation, illness and other harsh conditions while held in Recife.
The appeal succeeded only on the treatment of 105 days Lynn had previously spent on remand in Ireland. The Court of Appeal held that the sentencing judge should not have folded that period directly into the sentence in a way that could affect how executive authorities calculate remission.
On resentencing, the court reduced the Brazilian-related allowance to seven years and three months, producing a five-year-nine-month sentence. It separately directed that Lynn receive all credit lawfully due for the 105 days served on remand in Ireland.