By Charlie Charalambous
DISGRACED former Limassol Bishop Chrysanthos will be charged with attempting to defraud a London-based investor of $3.7 million, Attorney- general Alecos Markides said yesterday.
“Instructions have been given for police to proceed and charge the former bishop for offences of conspiracy, attempting to obtain money under false pretences and attempted fraud,” Markides told reporters at his Nicosia office.
Once a major player in Orthodox Church politics, Chrysanthos now faces the ignominy of being hauled down to a local police station and charged in writing.
But this does not that mean he will end up in court to face trial on the above offences, because Chrysanthos faces more serious charges of defrauding two Portuguese investors of $1.5 million.
“We will wait and see if this case goes to court because it concerns attempted fraud, when at the same time we are investigating the case of the Portuguese investors who actually lost $1.5 million,” Markides said yesterday.
Attempting to defraud carries a maximum sentence of three years in jail, while serious fraud is more than double that. Markides conceded that “unfortunately” the Portuguese case was still on-going and in need of further witness statements from the United States.
“We are waiting for necessary testimony from the US. We are sending an investigator there to collect the evidence,” said Markides.
“Every effort will be taken to complete this case as soon as possible in the interest of justice and then we will take a final decision on both cases.”
That decision is unlikely to materialise before next month as the Cypriot investigator will only be dispatched to the US in two weeks’ time.
“If it takes only a matter of weeks, then we will go ahead and wait for the outcome of the Portuguese case,” Markides said.
But the Attorney-general made it clear that, one way or another, Chrysanthos would soon be seeing the inside of a court room.
“We hope to go forward with a case where there is an actual loss of money, but this doesn’t mean we will wait around for ever.”
In January, the Attorney-general announced that there was only a five per cent chance that Chrysanthos would not end up in the dock; yesterday, he appeared to be leaving options open, though keen to stress there would be no cover-up:
“There is no cover-up as I believe our decisions are balanced,” the Attorney-general said.
Scotland Yard has issued an arrest warrant against the ex-bishop — who is allegedly also embroiled in multi-million dollar pyramid scams in America — in connection with trying to defraud a London-based investor from New Zealand.
Under the island’s constitution, a Cypriot citizen cannot be extradited, but if Chrysanthos left the island, the British arrest warrant would be enforced by Interpol.
However, Chrysanthos is blacklisted from leaving the island in view of pending legal proceedings.
Earlier this month, the New York-based Securities and Exchange Commission filed fraud and broker-dealer registration violation charges against the ex- bishop’s US lawyer Lewis Rivlin.
The SEC’s legal action filed through the Washington DC District Court claims that Rivlin defrauded investors of $6.2 million in a bank scam between December 1997 and June 1998.
As a relief defendant, Chrysanthos is named in the court papers as having illegally received $4.2 million of that money.
Chrysanthos resigned last November and was suspended by the Holy Synod from any religious duties for two years, after the Church accused him — among other things — of greed and profiteering through currency speculation.
He had no option but to stand down, before the Synod opened Church proceedings to have him defrocked over his suspect business deals.
The Chrysanthos affair came with the Cyprus Church already reeling from other sleaze allegations, including claims of homosexuality, abuse of nuns and a married priest running off with a Romanian stripper.
