Sean Connery and Micheline Roquebrune’ fight in the Goldfinger case, the Costa del Sol development deal of Casa Malibu, has taken an unlikely turn. Sean Connery is now ignoring summons to appear, claiming he is too old to travel. Yet, as the Telegraph reports, Sean Connery was not too old in June to fly to the Edinburgh Film Festival (and even dance for the cameras during a news briefing), and he was not too old to fly to New York in April.
The couple have been ordered to appear in a case dubbed the “Goldfinger” case. There are no beautiful ladies in this case, just beautiful real estate. And while the case has sparked international news coverage, the logic of the case remains baffling to U.S. fans. Connery, himself, is equally baffled why he is being bothered over real estate dealings for a former property.
Sean Connery and his wife bought Casa Malibu in 1975 after their wedding, 11 years after Goldfinger. Richard Burton, Michael Caine, Omar Shariff and George Best were among their guests at the famed home.
Then in 1999, the couple sold the property for £5.5 million. The developer tore down their house, and built 70 flats, eventually sold for £45 million. Investigators have since claimed there were
irregularities in the reclassification of the land by the buyer. Police raided the officer of Connery’s local attorney Diaz-Basten & Truan. Multiple local officials are under investigation. Connery now lives in the Bahamas and has an NYC apartment on the Upper East Side, reports the Telegraph.
A “court worker” issues the following news statement to the Daily Mirror that “Mr Connery has informed the court in writing he won’t be coming today. He has cited health reasons and his advanced age and said he has not been able to prepare the journey in time. The court is now considering its next move. The emission of an international arrest warrant is a possibility but a remote one. The most likely scenario is that the investigating magistrate will make a formal request through a rogatory commission to question Sir Sean at his home. The logistics of this will become clearer next week. It could be that a delegation goes to the Bahamas to quiz him. The other option would be that a team based locally is tasked to interview him.”
Connery’s wife has said of the matter “We have nothing to do with this. We sold the property and that is it.” Connery and his wife have not been charged with any crime. But prosecutors claim tax evasion and money-laundering operations were at play with their lawyers and local council of
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