He then ended up in Dubai where his present troubles began percolating before this year they caught up with him in spectacular fashion.
In the Dubai International Financial Centre Courts, governing civil commercial cases in the United Arab Emirates business hub, Morgan was this year accused by the court registrar of failing to declare his earlier convictions – disqualifying him from making representations to the courts – and also of lying about being a practising lawyer.
His attempts to placate authorities descended into farce after he provided documents that he claimed proved him to be a qualified lawyer and a member of the bar in Maryland and District of Columbia, but these were found to have been forged.
“These documents were provided to consultants for analysis and those consultants reported that the document purportedly from the State of Maryland had been tampered with (at a probability of 93%), whereas the document purportedly from the District of Columbia had been tampered with at a probability of 100%,” the court ruled.
One document was dated and signed by a court official over a year after they had retired from their position, and another was found to have the name of “Shaun Morgan” pasted over the name “Susan Stevens Mpillers”.
Morgan also drew the ire of judges when trying to claim he hadn’t been convicted and imprisoned for fraud in Utah. He was six times asked if he was the same Shaun Morgan named in US court documents and claimed either he had been exonerated under a secret and sealed deal with prosecutors, or that his imprisonment related to only drink-driving.
“His persistent refusal to answer a simple and direct question, put to him many times, was because of his concern with respect to the potential ramifications of making a false statement to the court,” the judge said.
“I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that his assertion that he had only ever been in prison for driving offences in the United States is a complete concoction designed to explain his prevarication. I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Morgan has quite deliberately lied to the court in relation to his imprisonment in the United States.”
In unusually scathing remarks, Dubai judges said: “Mr Morgan is a charlatan who has not established an entitlement to practise law in any jurisdiction. He is dishonest, completely lacking in integrity and a fraudster.”
Morgan was given the maximum possible fine allowed under the law – US$50,000 ($88,700) – and barred from making future representations. He filed an appeal in September – that judges described as “a curious document” – but lost on all counts.
While in Dubai, Morgan has branded himself as an international finance and company formation consultant and to be a “law expert and economist genius” and also an “economic wizard”. He has also claimed the title of Dr, based on a purported PhD from the London School of Economics.
Ten years ago, after his deportation to New Zealand, Morgan told New Zealand media he had never attended the London School of Economics and admitted his prison stint in Switzerland was a fair cop: “What I was guilty of was very bad judgment and a lack of fiduciary duty. I made stupid decisions and cost a lot of people a lot of money.”
Requests for comment or explanation to Morgan about his recent adventures in Dubai, sent to multiple email addresses linked to him and his purported businesses, went unanswered this week.
Matt Nippert is an Auckland-based investigations reporter covering white-collar and transnational crimes and the intersection of politics and business. He has won more than a dozen awards for his journalism – including twice being named Reporter of the Year – and joined the Herald in 2014 after having spent the decade prior reporting from business newspapers and national magazines.
