27 Nov Anagnostopoulos secures conviction of Athenian lawyer to ten years imprisonment for multi-million fraud
On 26 November 2013 the Criminal Court for Serious Crimes Athens found the Athenian lawyer Nikolaos Gorgias guilty on three counts of serious fraud totalling 27,3 million € against his former client Konstantinos Angelopoulos.
Ilias Anagnostopoulos represented Mr Angelopoulos as lead counsel at the trial hearing against his former lawyer.
The Court found that between 1998 and 2007 K. Angelopoulos paid 27,3 million € to N. Gorgias after being defrauded by him in relation to fictitious court proceedings in Germany and investments in real estate. N. Gorgias has used the whole of his client’s funds for personal enrichment.
The Court sentenced N. Gorgias to a ten years prison term, which is the maximum sentence for serious fraud. The Court ruled that the defendant commits fraud by profession and out of habit, rejecting the defence argument that mitigating circumstances should apply.
Criminal proceedings against N. Gorgias had been opened after K. Angelopoulos filed a criminal suit against his former lawyer in December 2007.