Lars Windhorst, a German businessman now based in London, donated the money last month, entitling him to membership of the party’s Number 10 Club, which offers “the chance to meet senior parliamentarians” four times a year “at a selection of prestigious venues”. Mr Windhorst, 33, stood trial on 35 charges of fraud, embezzlement and breach of trust in Berlin last December. After a plea-bargain, prosecutors agreed to drop the fraud charges if he paid a fine of €1million (£850,000), repaid €2.5million (£2.1million) to his alleged victim and admitted a breach of trust offence, for which he was given a one-year suspended prison sentence. Mr Windhorst’s admitted breach of trust involved siphoning off €800,000 (£683,000) of company money into one of his personal accounts. The court has also said that fraud charges will be reinstated if he fails to repay the victim of his alleged fraud by the middle of next month. Mr Windhorst also faces a civil suit by Alki Partners, an American hedge fund, which has filed papers in a Manhattan court alleging that he and others took part in a “fraudulent scheme” to “manipulate” the share price of Remote DX, a US company. He strongly denies this allegation, calling it “complete nonsense”. Mr Windhorst is known as the “former Wunderkind” in his native Germany. He built an apparently successful technology business after leaving school at 16. While still in his teens, he was taken on an official tour of the Far East by Helmut Kohl, the then chancellor, as an example of young German entrepreneurship. His offices in Berlin were opened by the actor Michael Douglas, a former business partner. However, Mr Windhorst lost his investors tens of millions of euros in a series of bankruptcies. Earlier this year Handelsblatt, the German business newspaper, said: “If you wanted to give the crisis in Germany a face it would be Lars Windhorst’s. He stands for a lot of what the country has been accusing its bankers of for months: greed, boundlessness and immoral behaviour.” Mr Windhorst insisted last night that he had had no contact with ministers or MPs and was not involved in any project with the Government. “I’m not really engaged or directly involved in politics, but my business partner suggested that I made a donation, and I did,” he said. He declined to name the business partner. Robert Unger, Mr Windhorst’s lawyer, said that his client “strongly disputed” the fraud and other charges, but had agreed to admit to the breach of trust offence in order to end criminal proceedings against him. The €800,000 was taken out of a company in which Mr Windhorst owned almost all of the shares, he said. “The admission to a crime was only in the context of a settlement, otherwise he would never have done it. “He starts businesses again and again with big success, then things happen like the dotcom problem and the world financial crisis, and he borrows more money, trying to recover, and then he gets into problems, and you get disputes,” Mr Unger added. Mr Windhorst’s donation comes after reports that the wives of two Middle Eastern businessmen embroiled in controversial arms deals also gave large sums to the Tories just before the election. John Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw, said: “It is clear that the Tories will take money from anybody. They now need to be equally quick to pay it back, and apologise.” A Conservative Party spokesman said the donation was “fully permissible and declared with the Electoral Commission”.Conservative Party took £10,000 from convicted criminal
Lars Windhorst
The Conservative Party has accepted a £10,000 donation from a
convicted criminal who was recently given a suspended prison
sentence for breach of trust.
Sunday, 30 May 2010
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