Lyon has plans to buy Cooks hotel

By BRIDGET CARTER

Former Auckland property developer Mark Lyon has plans to buy the Sheraton Hotel in Rarotonga.

The half-finished hotel, which nearly bankrupted the Cook Islands, folded 10 years ago amid mafia and murder investigations.

Lyon revealed his plans to invest in the "failed and abandoned" complex this week during one of two hearings in the Auckland District Court in which he faced charges of unlawful possession of a pistol, four knives and ammunition.

He was found guilty yesterday.

Lyon recently acquired work and resident permits for Rarotonga and said he would stay for at least a year to get the Sheraton "up and running".

The 48-year-old now lives on Rarotonga with his partner, Susan, and his sons.

He gave evidence in court about life in Rarotonga and his former life as a high-flying Auckland property developer, driving fast cars, living in million-dollar houses, smoking drugs and mixing with gangs.

He said he had had death threats.

This year, Cook Islanders complained to police about Lyon arriving unannounced on an island in a holed speedboat.

But Lyon said he was "just having a quiet time". Yesterday, he told the Herald that he had been living in a house at Blackrock for a year and did things like boating and lying on the beach.

His lawyer, Chris Comeskey, had suggested to Lyon when he was in Mt Eden prison that he should move to the Cooks.

He said he had been looking "very seriously" at the hotel investment for about two months and had approached the owners of the Sheraton Cook Islands, now known as the Vaimaanga Hotel.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Vince McBride said he was unaware of Lyon's interest in buying the hotel and thought he would have heard if he had made a formal offer to its owners, which was a Rarotongan tribe.

There had been various other proposals to buy the complex, including one from Wellington-based Cook Islander Tim Tepaki, who wanted to create a Hilton Hotel.

The court hearings this week for Lyon related to incidents during November last year and April this year.

In the first hearing, Lyon was found guilty of unlawfully possessing explosives, namely ammunition, but not guilty of possessing a pistol after police searched his million-dollar Mt Eden home during November last year.

The second hearing was to defend charges of unlawfully possessing a pistol, ammunition and offensive weapons - four knives - when he was stopped by police at a Karangahape Rd petrol station in April this year.

Lyon faces jail after being found guilty of the charges by Judge Philip Recordon and has been remanded on bail for sentencing in February.

At the time police said Lyon was with a man known as a Headhunters gang member and another man with a Mongrel Mob tattoo on his forehead.

Lyon said in court that at the time he was on his way to the police station to hand the pistol over. Judge Recordon said part of Lyon's bail conditions were that he present himself to the door "should the police come knocking".

In June Lyon pleaded guilty to a variety of charges ranging from a minor Ecstasy charge to shoplifting and driving offences.

He is not thought to face any further charges.



A troubled history



* Construction work stopped on the 200-room Sheraton resort in 1993 after the Cook Islands Government signed a $52 million deal with an Italian bank.

* A second Italian company took over the project and Cooks Prime Minister Geoffrey Henry said the funding was pulled amid allegations of Mafia-related corruption.

* The first Italian manager of the project was murdered on Vanuatu in what police thought was a foreign-ordered hit, but was later believed to be a domestic-related.