Kevin McGeever In Fake Hostage Claim
The tycoon is charged with wasting police time after being found wandering barefoot on a rural road in west Ireland.
3:47pm, Wednesday 24 July 2013 Irish tycoon in fake hostage claim
McGeever arrives at Strokestown District Court flanked by detectives
An Irish property tycoon charged with falsely alleging he was kidnapped and held hostage after he vanished for eight months, cannot afford to post bail, a court hears.
Kevin McGeever, who once sold homes from an international portfolio in Dubai, has claimed he does not have enough money to cover a 12,500 euro (£10,700) bond.
The 68-year-old, who walked into Strokestown District Court, Ireland wearing dark glasses and a black leather jacket, was remanded in custody after also being charged with wasting police time.
McGeever appeared in court looking malnourished and dishevelled
The court heard the pensioner, with an address at a mansion named Nirvana, in Ballywinna, Craughwell, in the neighbouring Co Galway, was in "no position" to pay his bail.
McGeever, who has a faint scar on his forehead from where the letters "TIEF" were scrawled before his dramatic reappearance late one night on a country road in January, did not speak during his case.
Sitting on a defendant's bench in the packed, wood-panelled courtroom, squeezed among dozens of others, he spoke briefly to a solicitor as his case was called.
Joan Devine, acting on behalf of McGeever's Dublin-based solicitor Tom Brabazon, requested the judge set a lower bail amount of 8,000 euro (£6,899).
"He is not in a position to come up with that kind of money," Ms Devine said.
Judge Geoffrey Browne rejected the application and remanded McGeever in custody with consent to bail.
The once successful businessman, originally from Swinford in Co Mayo, was reported missing on May 27 2012 and found eight months later wandering barefoot on a rural road in the west of Ireland.
The night he was discovered near Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, by a man and a woman, Catherine Vallely and her friend Pat Rehill, he was described as being a shrunken figure, in a dishevelled state, with a long beard, hair and finger nails.
He was said to be malnourished and dehydrated, and as having lost several stone in weight when found.
McGeever was charged under sections 12(a) and 12(b) of the 1976 Criminal Law Act, relating to knowingly giving false information that an offence had been committed and wasting Garda time.
The charges allege McGeever made false reports and statements to gardai between January 29 and February 28 this year that offences of false imprisonment, assault, and threats to harm had occurred.
