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Health authorities conned out of $17 million have been forced to pay for the $25,000 upkeep of a 50m launch bought by a fraudster.
Michael Swann and Kerry Harford were last month found guilty of defrauding the Otago DHB of $16.9m between 2000 and 2006.
The pair used
198 invoices from Sonnford Solutions, a company formed by Harford, to charge the board $16.9m for IT-related services. A Serious Fraud Office investigation found that no work was done.
Swann received about $43,000 a week from the fraudulent contracts, spending the money on assets including a holiday house in Wanaka, a historic Dunedin homestead and expensive cars - including a Lamborghini.
Swann also purchased six vessels, including the 50m yacht Townsend Cromwell, which is now berthed in Port Chalmers.
The boat and a number of assets were frozen by the courts after the Otago DHB filed civil proceedings against Swann.
Board chairman Richard Thomson said it was possible the courts would order Swann to pay reparation at his March sentencing.
"Our hope is that the judge will order reparation and Swann will co-operate in the disposal of assets to pay that reparation," he said.
"If that is the case we wouldn't necessarily continue with the civil proceedings.
"But part of the civil proceedings were to get the court to freeze assets that were under his and associates' names and in various trusts, otherwise there was nothing to stop him disposing of assets. The boat is just one of those."
The boat has been up for sale for several years, and Thomson said the DHB had been footing the bill for berthing and maintenance.
"The figure is about $25,000 per year, ballpark. Since it has been up for sale there has been one interested party but that never came to anything."
Thomson said there was no price set for the boat.
"There is no figure on it, it is simply there for interested parties to make an offer. The public see it and it's big and it's just sitting in the harbour and figures like $4 million have been bandied about. It's not your average trailer-sailer, but it's not worth anything like that."
The boat was completely refitted and refurbished in 2006 and work included the installation of LCD TVs and DVD players in each cabin.
