Ex-Orb director delays sentencing over £34m theft

Former Orb Estates director Gerald Smith has avoided sentencing on 11 charges of theft and false accounting owing to his ill health. The millionaire businessman, who in April pleaded guilty to stealing more than £34m from failed dot-com company Izodia, of which Orb was once the largest shareholder, has been released from sentencing at Snaresbrook Crown Court. He will instead appear at Cambridge Crown Court on 11 September. Smith, who entered the courtroom in a wheelchair, declined to comment on his health but is thought to have recently been in a car accident. Counsel told the court: “It is agreed by medical experts for both the defence and the prosecution that Dr Smith is not fit for sentence today.” On the first day of his trial at Blackfriars Crown Court in April, Smith reversed a previous plea denying 10 charges of theft and one count of false accounting in relation to Orb’s 29.9% stake in Izodia. The charges relate to a £34m cash pile, Izodia’s major asset, which went missing after Morley Fund Management pulled out of talks to sell the remainder of the company to Orb in 2002. The Serious Fraud Office also dropped two counts of conspiracy to defraud and one count of forgery. References: EGi Legal News 18/07/06