Judge reveals Petricevic's luxury launch spending

More details have emerged of how former Bridgecorp managing director Rod Petricevic fraudulently financed the buying of luxury launch Medici.

Petricevic pleaded guilty to four fraud charges at the Auckland District Court today and will serve an extra four months in jail, on top of his existing six-and-a-half year sentence.

He was jointly charged with fellow director Rob Roest, but only Petricevic was sentenced today.

Both were due to stand trial in September.

Four other charges were dropped, including one of paying $1.1m to spray tanner Janita Wright, whom he was romantically linked to. 

Judge Philippa Cunningham's sentencing notes reveal information about the luxury spending.

Medici was bought with $1.8 million of Bridgecorp money in 2002.

It was to be used during the America's Cup to take investors on trips around Auckland harbour.

Medici was owned by Poseidon Ltd, a company Petricevic directed and owned.

Poseidon took out a loan of $NZ1.6m from Dominion Finance to finance the purchase and Bridgecorp provided security to Dominion.

Judge Cunningham says Bridgecorp was required to report quarterly to the trustee.

"It failed to tell the trustee that Dominion held a charge over assets of Bridgecorp, and it failed to provide details of that security in half-yearly accounts."

Petricevic travelled to Japan in early March 2002 to have a look at the vessel and by late April he signed a memorandum of understanding for the purchase "on behalf of Bridgecorp Holdings Ltd".

A letter was written on May 7 indicating that providing a survey of the boat was positive, the deal could go ahead.

On May 21 there was a directors' meeting at which the boat purchase was discussed, but "there was no concluded agreement to purchase".

Later that day Bridgecorp made an offer to buy it.

The Bridgecorp board did not approve the purchase because it was worried it "could send the wrong signal to the market".

However, minutes of the meeting also reveal "if management were intending to pursue this type of promotional work, they should pursue some other way ... such as lease or sponsorship".

Judge Cunningham says this incident was similar to Petricevic's later offending, in that he "was keeping information that investors were entitled to know about from them".

However, she says there is no connection between "this offending and what happened in 2006 and 2007" – a reference to the $459 million collapse of Bridgecorp.