An action by a 60-year-old American woman who claims she was defrauded of millions by her Irish former fiance will be heard at the High Court in late April.
Elisa Rodino claims Thomas J Queally stole about $4 million (€3 million) of her money and lodged much of that in a bank in Ennis, Co Clare.
She also claims Mr Queally had been living a double life and had another fiancee while he was engaged to her.
Mr Queally denies the claims and denies he transferred money to Ireland from a joint bank in the US to his bank account in Ireland without her authorisation. He pleads that, while he was in a relationship with Ms Rodino, he was never her fiancee.
Lawyers for Ms Rodino last month secured temporary account-freezing orders against Mr Queally, of Sherman Avenue, Yonkers, New York, and originally from Lahaknock, Kilmaley, Co Clare, preventing him reducing a savings account at Permanent TSB in Ennis, Co Clare below €1.6 million.
Ms Rodino, of Cathedral Avenue, Hempstead, New York, claims the money in that account, about $2 million, is hers and that it was moved by Mr Queally from a joint account held in the US in both their names.
When the matter was mentioned to Ms Justice Mary Laffoy yesterday, John O’Donnell SC, for Ms Rodino, said the sides had agreed the matter could be adjourned to the full hearing on April 30th, with the freezing order remaining in place.
Ms Rodino’s Irish lawyers secured the freezing orders after the court was told she was a vulnerable woman who was taken advantage of by Mr Queally, whom she first met in 2007.
She claims that, in order to help Mr Queally in a court case against a former employer, she had agreed last August to put his name on one of her bank accounts, a deposit account containing $5 million.
Mr Queally asked her to do this because it would show he and Ms Rodino, who had inherited a sizeable property portfolio from her late father, were a couple and that work he did on her properties was not a contract of employment, she claims.
Mr Queally was due to meet her in Spain last October but never showed up, she claims. She later discovered money was transferred to Ireland and to a US bank account, and she has also brought proceedings against him in New York.
Mr Queally has denied all the allegations made against him in the Irish and New York courts.