A friend and business associate of the jailed solicitor Michael Lynn will have to enter a plea when he next appears before court on charges that he allegedly failed to provide gardaí with the passwords to devices seized during a search of his apartment in January 2024, a judge has said.
Judge Anne Watkin of Dún Laoghaire District Court told Bulgarian national Yavor Poptoshev (49) that he would have to enter a plea when he appears before her again on February 5th.
The case has been delayed by an unsuccessful challenge to the High Court and the Supreme Court, where Mr Poptoshev argued that the 2001 Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act did not give the authorities the power to compel him to disclose his passwords.
When the case came before the District Court in Dún Laoghaire on Tuesday, Paul Comiskey O’Keeffe BL, instructed by solicitor Ciarán Mulholland, who had been representing Mr Poptoshev, said they wanted to come off record in relation to the case.
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Mr Poptoshev told the judge that he did not have another solicitor but would have one in a few days. Asked by Judge Watkin if he wanted to enter a plea, he said he would prefer to discuss the matter first with a solicitor.
“You need to get at it,” the judge said.
Asked if he was applying for free legal aid, Mr Poptoshev said: “I don’t know.”
Mr Comiskey O’Keeffe told the judge Mr Poptoshev was no longer residing in the jurisdiction. He said he and Mr Mulholland had been privately retained and instructed not to apply for free legal aid.
When the judge raised the issue of disclosure, Mr Comiskey O’Keeffe said the entire file in the case had gone to Mr Poptoshev. Judge Watkin told the accused he would need to give disclosure to his new solicitor when he had one.
“Make sure you know how you are pleading,” she said, fixing February 5th for the entering of a plea or the setting of a date for trial.
Mr Poptoshev is facing charges of obstructing a Garda in January 2024 by refusing to disclose the passwords for three electronic items, a Google Pixel 4 mobile phone, a Google Pixel 6 mobile phone and an Asus laptop, at his apartment at St Raphaela’s Road, Stillorgan, Dublin, under Section 49 (1) of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001.
In his challenge to the legality of the charges, Mr Poptoshev said he had known Michael Lynn for 14 or 15 years and worked with him on projects in several countries, including Portugal, Hungary and Slovakia.
He said he had assisted Lynn with “forensic analysis” in Lynn’s 2023 criminal trial where Lynn was convicted on 10 counts of theft from various financial institutions, totalling €17.9 million, in 2006 and 2007 and sentenced to 5½ years in jail.
