News report links Maxwell to failed Gizmondo rescue bid

April 19th, 2006, 01:59 Posted By: wraggster

A report in the British newspaper the Mail On Sunday has alleged that Kevin Maxwell, the son of the late media tycoon Robert Maxwell, was involved in a failed bid to rescue collapsed mobile gaming company Gizmondo.

According to the paper, Maxwell held a meeting with top executives at Gizmondo last year and discussed a deal which would have seen him providing funding to keep the firm afloat in exchange for a stake in Gizmondo's US parent company, Tiger Telematics.

The deal fell apart, however, when Maxwell failed to produce the funding. Along with his brother Ian, Kevin Maxwell had previously been declared bankrupt with debts of over GBP 400 million - a figure which even dwarfs the debts with which Gizmondo finally sank.

Although Maxwell was acquitted of charges of fraud in the wake of the collapse of the Maxwell media empire in the early nineties, after the suspicious death of controversial media tycoon Robert Maxwell, the actions of the Maxwell brothers and their father were described by the UK's Department of Trade and Industry as "inexcusable."

In a related story, disgraced former Gizmondo executive Stefan Eriksson - who left the company prior to its collapse after it emerged that he had been convicted for his involvement with mafia organisations in Sweden - has been charged on a number of counts after his arrest in the USA last week.

Eriksson, who hit the headlines after his Ferarri Enzo crashed into a pole on a Californian highway at 162mph a few weeks ago, has been charged with embezzlement, grand theft and being a felon in possession of a gun, as well as two counts of drunk driving.

The embezzlement charge relates to taking three cars, including the Enzo, worth a combined amount of over US$ 3 million out of Great Britain despite being prohibited from doing so by lease agreements, while the gun possession charge is due to a gun being found in his home in Los Angeles in contravention of a law preventing convicted felons from possessing firearms. Eriksson has a felony conviction for counterfeiting dating from the early nineties.

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