May.19, 2010, 20:42
Wellington, May 19 NZPA - Auckland lawyer Eb Leary has been discharged on a money laundering charge, it was revealed today when his name suppression was lifted by the Court of Appeal.
Mr Leary, who had fought to retain name suppression, said he had over two years always asserted his innocence.
"At the first available opportunity a judge agreed, so I was discharged without trial, but with no suppression of name," he said in a statement.
"This has given me a much stronger and more sympathetic understanding of how the wrongly accused feel when facing the might of the state."
Court of Appeal president Justice William Young and Justices Robert Chambers and Ellen France today lifted suppression orders and allowed Mr Leary, 65, and his wife Claudine Leary, 60, to be named.
Mrs Leary was convicted in February of money-laundering and fined $10,000. Mr Leary was discharged.
Mr Leary was struck off the New Zealand roll in 1987 for misconduct when he represented drugs syndicate kingpin Terry Clark, who was being tried for drug offences.
In 2007, three High Court judges overturned the New Zealand Law Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal's ruling that he should not be allowed to practise again.
Clark was involved in a drugs cartel trafficking heroin into New Zealand, Australia and England and responsible for several murders.