Businessman Breifne O'Brien will be sentenced next month for stealing and deceiving friends and associates out of millions of euro.
Mr. O'Brien (52), who has an address in Kilmore, Monkstown Grove, Co. Dublin, is facing up to ten years in prison.
Dressed in a navy blazer and jeans, the tanned businessman sat at the back of Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for more than an hour waiting for his case to be called.
When it came before Judge Patricia Ryan his barrister Patrick McGrath SC asked for sentencing to be put back until the new term in the Autumn.
He said his client is experiencing family difficulties.
But the judge refused to adjourn the case for such a lengthy period of time and set the sentencing hearing for July 30th. It is expected to take one day.
Breifne O'Brien remains on bail until then.
Last week he pleaded guilty to 14 sample charges of theft and deception from 2003 to 2008.
He admits defrauding friends and associates like farmer Louis Dowley, and businessman Evan Newell - who was duped into handing over nearly a million euros for bogus property deals in Hamburg.
O'Brien spent more than a year trying to stop his prosecution, mainly on the grounds of adverse media coverage. His admissions came just weeks after the Supreme Court ruled his trial could go ahead.
Several years ago, during civil proceedings, Commercial Court judge Mr. Justice Peter Kelly compared O'Brien to Montague Tigg the villain of Charles Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit who used a fashionable facade to lure investors into a pyramid scheme.
