On a simplistic level, it would be easy to describe the rise and fall of Michael Lynn as a cautionary tale of unfettered ambition and greed.

After all, riding a wave of supreme self-confidence, Lynn broke the rules repeatedly in the pursuit of profit and wealth. Lynn’s hubris would ultimately be his downfall, and his initial decision to flee rather than face the consequences of his actions in Ireland prolonged his personal saga and led to a harrowing stint in a Brazilian jail.

Had he stayed in Ireland in December 2007, Lynn would unquestionably be a free man by now. Yes, judging by the guilty verdict delivered this week, he would have spent time in prison. But time would have passed and he might have reclaimed his life by now.

Instead, he left for Portugal and then Brazil, leading to a 16-year legal purgatory. 

But it is more than a cautionary tale. It is also a story of its time and of its place. Lynn broke the rules in Ireland because nobody sought to challenge him or regulate his commercial property activities. Lynn was able to dupe bankers into advancing yet more loans because they were happy to advance the money. He cultivated relationships with senior bankers, and that empowered mid-ranking bankers to push through the paperwork.

As Isabel writes on the site this weekend in a forensic piece on Lynn’s two trials, the former solicitor admitted he had taken out multiple mortgages on the same properties, but he did so because he had express permission from the banks – his “comrades in arms”, as he put it.

This is disputed and the jury last week convicted him on 10 of the 21 charges against him at the conclusion of a second trial (the jury in the first trial failed to reach a verdict). 

But undoubtedly the internal controls at most of his banks can be generously described as lax.

Lynn was also a singular character. A number of years ago, I traced through his last months and days in Ireland, prior to boarding a plane instead of making his way to a courtroom. The details were bizarre. 

For a period in 2007, he had an in-house solicitor at his firm followed by private investigators after becoming suspicious that she was leaking info to competitors (she was not). 

His life was characterised by frantic dealmaking and frantic travel. 

In my reporting for The Business Post, I zeroed in on one day: January 26, 2007. He began the day looking at an 80-acre site in Wicklow, before moving on to screen a run-down property on Bessborough Avenue in Dublin 3 – notes revealed he was worried about it being used by drug abusers.

His office then reached out to a high-end real estate agent in Manhattan to find out about a penthouse. The price tag was $90 million. He then rang his tax accountant in Portugal, before calling Brazil, where Lynn was hoping to build property. He also took a call from Anglo Irish Bank.

Such was his life. But, as we now know, the business empire he was building was constructed on sand.

And when the edifice crumbled, he disappeared. 

It remains unclear how much, if any, jail time Lynn will serve in Ireland. Under the terms of the extradition agreement with Brazil, the time he spent in jail in Brazil will count toward his overall term

Sixteen years after the Law Society swooped on his practice, the world has moved on. The Irish economy has collapsed and recovered, and the scars of the financial crisis are fading. Lynn, however, still remains trapped in a world of his own making.