Long jail sentence looms for fake Ritz vendor

A former HGV driver who claimed to be able to buy London’s Ritz Hotel for £200m is facing the prospect of a lengthy jail sentence. Last week, following more than 14 hours of jury deliberations, Anthony Lee, 49, of Beal, East Yorkshire, was convicted of obtaining payment by deception. Southwark Crown Court heard that Lee had conducted a “simple but well-targeted and ambitious scam” to dupe an investor into paying £1m on the promise of being able to buy the hotel. Judge Robbins warned Lee, who is an undischarged bankrupt, that he faces a “quite substantial custodial sentence” for his part in the scam, which was revealed by EG in 2007. However, Lee and retired contracts manager Patrick Dolan, 68, were both found not guilty of conspiracy to defraud. The prosecution had claimed that, in July 2006, Lee, Dolan and a third man, solicitor Conn Farrell, conspired falsely to suggest that they could buy the landmark 132-bedroom hotel for £200m if businessman Terry Collins paid a £1m non-refundable deposit. Lee convinced Collins that he was a “close friend and associate” of the billionaire Barclay brothers, who own the Ritz, and claimed that the brothers would sell it to Collins’ firm, London Allied. Farrell, 57, who was accused of lending a “veneer of legitimacy” to the scam, was cleared of conspiracy after he told the jury that he was merely acting on the instructions of his clients. Collins was given leave to reclaim his £1m deposit from Lee and Dolan in September 2007.