Royal Court Commissioner Sir John Saunders finished summing up the evidence in the four-week trial of Christopher Paul Byrne yesterday afternoon.
Jurats Robert Christensen and Charles Blampied began their deliberations immediately, but no verdicts are expected until tomorrow or possibly Tuesday.
A number of sessions have been lost due to court commitments and, as a result, the court will not be sitting today, Friday or on Monday.
Mr Byrne denies all the charges against him.
The trial of the former managing director of Lumiere Wealth has heard evidence from roughly a dozen Jersey investors – who collectively lost more than £3 million on investments Mr Byrne placed them in with Providence funds.
Miami-based Providence – which had offices in Guernsey as well as Hong Kong, Vancouver, Singapore and Panama – collapsed in the summer of 2016 and was exposed as a $150 million global Ponzi scheme.
Mr Byrne is accused of misleading clients about the risky nature of the funds and failing to disclose that the fund was Lumiere’s majority shareholder and that he stood to make personal financial gains for promoting it. The Prosecution claim this was done because Lumiere and Mr Byrne were so dependant on Providence that ‘he could not afford for it to fail’ and that Mr Byrne came to act more as a salesman for the fund than an adviser.
Advocate Olaf Blakeley, defending, argued, however, that Mr Byrne had sold clients Providence because he believed so strongly in the fund.
Advocate Blakeley said Mr Byrne had ‘made some foolish decisions’ but said they did not rise to the level of criminal responsibility.
