Warrant for hedge-fund fraudster Kenneth Grace after sentence no-show
An investment fund manager who transferred millions of dollars from clients into his bank account is wanted for arrest after failing to show up to his own sentencing.
Kenneth Charles Grace was to learn his fate on Thursday in Downing Centre District Court after pleading guilty in April 2023 to six charges of dishonest conduct in relation to his Goldsky investment fund.
Judge Siobhan Herbert issued a warrant for Grace’s arrest after he failed to appear in court and his lawyers were unable to account for his whereabouts or contact him.
The investment fund directed by Grace was the subject of Federal Court proceedings in 2020 and a case in the Queensland Supreme Court finalised in February.
Known as the Goldsky Global Access Fund, it was forced into liquidation in 2018 amid allegations Grace, as the sole director, was using investors’ funds for himself and running a Ponzi scheme.
Former Olympic swimmer Sam Riley and Olympic cyclist Robbie McEwen are among a long list of investors owed money by the former car dealer, who enjoyed a lavish lifestyle before the fund went bust.
During the Federal Court case, Grace said he moved money from the hedge fund into a bank account he ran with his wife.
He told the court he never advised clients that he was moving the money into his personal account but he had not lost any of their funds.
Grace’s expenditure included renting a luxury Sydney Harbour home with its own skippered motorboat “so he could clear his head” in the months before the fund folded.
At least $24 million is still unaccounted for since Goldsky’s collapse.
Grace had claimed he was the victim of cybercrime and accused the fund’s liquidators of not trying hard enough to find the cash.
One of his victims had flown in from Kingscliff in northern NSW to be present for the hearing, but the sentencing was adjourned indefinitely until Grace could be found.
