Gene DeMarco was convicted of fraud after selling some of Sir Peter Jackson's vintage planes, and has since relocated to New York in breach of bankruptcy restrictions. File / George Novak
Gene DeMarco was convicted of fraud after selling some of Sir Peter Jackson's vintage planes, and has since relocated to New York in breach of bankruptcy restrictions. File / George Novak
A convicted fraudster who skipped the country, violating bankruptcy restrictions, says he has no regrets and has vowed to fight efforts by authorities to recover assets to satisfy his creditors.
In August 2022 he was arrested at Auckland Airport after attempting unauthorised international travel and his passport was surrendered to the District Court.
His passport was returned to him, and breach of parole charges withdrawn, when his parole was discharged that September.
But by this time DeMarco was also bound by bankruptcy restrictions which limited international travel to that approved by the Official Assignee (OA).
A disputed 2017 property deal saw his vendors seek the return of their deposit after they alleged DeMarco failed to pass on an adverse building report, and they bankrupted DeMarco over the six-figure debt in July 2021.
Days after receiving his passport back from the District Court, DeMarco requested permission from the OA to travel to visit his “dying mother in New York” who was said to have suffered a stroke.
“I make this request on compassionate grounds and it would only be for a temporary absence from New Zealand,” DeMarco told the OA.
On September 22, 2022, before the OA had even ruled on the application he had filed 48 hours prior, DeMarco went to the airport and boarded his flight.
Demarco told the Herald this week from New York, where he has been since departing Auckland, that he had no regrets about his unauthorised departure.
“I wasn’t able to protect my family in New Zealand.”
He was motivated by having been absent when his father had died some years ago.
“I was not going to let that happen again.”
He said he had spent considerable time negotiating first with the parole service, and then the Official Assignee, to try to get permission to travel before he finally boarded his plane in Auckland.
Sir Peter Jackson leaves the High Court at Wellington after giving evidence in the trial of fraudster Gene DeMarco. Photo / Melissa Nightingale
Filings in New York bankruptcy courts show the OA has followed DeMarco abroad and begun proceeding there in a bid to seize assets, with judges having difficult squaring DeMarco’s claims to be a New York resident - and entitled to carve out a family home from bankruptcy actions - with claims he had made to the OA, and his work and criminal history in New Zealand.
The New York courts heard DeMarco was granted a New Zealand work permit in 2001, then permanent residency in 2008, and his less-than-annual visits to New York since had all been short-term.
The New York judge declined DeMarco’s bid for bankruptcy protections.
“DeMarco’s testimony of an epiphany of an intent to reside permanently in New York while airborne on September 22, 2022 is encircled by contrary and numerous representations made to this Court and New Zealand officials.”
An Official Assignee spokesperson declined to answer questions about the case.
“We are unable to comment because of privacy reasons.”
They also detailed a range of novel legal arguments advanced by DeMarco, including that because he did not consent to his bankruptcy, he was not bound by its restrictions.
For its part, the OA submitted to New Zealand courts that DeMarco’s legal actions have been vexatious and “suggests Mr DeMarco is using unmeritorious litigation against the Official Assignee as a means of emptying his bankrupt estate and denying the victims of his fraud their money”.
Demarco told the Herald his mother survived her stroke, but was now in her mid-90s and bed-bound.
“Now she is much better mentally but worse physically ... She has always wanted to remain at home in familiar surrounding where all her memories of me as a child and my father exist. Now the thought of the OA taking our home is even more stressful.”
