Former Wallabies captain Rocky Elsom has been sentenced to 2 years gaol time by a French courtroom, and can also be set to pay a $109,000 fantastic for misusing company belongings throughout his time as membership president of Narbonne.
The 75-capped Wallaby didn’t attend the proceedings, and a manhunt is reportedly underway to find him, in keeping with CODE, with French authorities issuing an arrest warrant for the 42-year-old.
After representing the Wallabies from 2005-2011, Elsom transitioned into sports activities administration, serving as president of Narbonne from 2015-16.
In October final 12 months, experiences surfaced that Elsom fled Eire following a world arrest warrant being issued for embezzling funds, which got here with a 5 12 months jail sentence. Elsom defended himself in an unique interview with The Roar, along with his lawyer interesting the choice.
Rocky Elsom. (Photograph by Mark Metcalfe/Getty Photos)
On the time, the embezzling membership funds had been reportedly claimed by making unjustified expenditures to pay a coach or a basic supervisor who was residing in Australia.
Elsom was finally acquitted on expenses of forgery and use of forgery however was made to pay €230,000 in compensation to the membership’s liquidator.
Nevertheless, claims of misusing company belongings nonetheless hung over the flanker, which culminated in a trial final month and reportedly carried a three-year jail sentence and fines of up $687,000 AUD.
Elsom’s lawyer requested an acquittal, and Elsom didn’t attend the trial.
The flanker was working as a rugby coach at a college in Eire on the time of the warrant being issued, and he instantly fled the nation – however has maintained his innocence.
“(Narbonne) achieved stable earnings, had good sporting outcomes, and remained in Professional D2 (the second tier of French rugby) till 2016 and past,” he mentioned in an official assertion in October final 12 months.
“Evidently I’ve been focused as a scapegoat for the long run mismanagement of this well-known rugby membership.”
Elsom expanded on his reasoning in additional element in his unique interview with Christy Doran on The Roar Rugby Podcast – explaining his speedy departure from Eire and likewise how he believes he has been branded a scapegoat for the membership’s monetary mismanagement.
“They got here straight to the place I used to be working, got here straight to my house and I’d already left by then,” he mentioned.
“I left as a result of it will put me in a state of affairs the place I’d be detained in custody and the Irish could be roughly obliged to extradite me to France.
“That may make it much more tough for me to have the ability to defend myself from inside a police station or wherever I’d be in custody.
“Once they make the allegations, I believe that there’s little or no validity to them, particularly nothing that put the membership in hurt’s method.
“If we undergo the allegations, it’s very, very simple for me to defend.
“As a lot as you simply need to say you didn’t do it, these issues positively occurred. However who’s the sufferer right here? The place have they been capable of show that the membership was deprived by it? And pivotally, how did these actions result in the relegation of the membership two years after I left in 2018? And that’s a key issue within the case.”
Elsom’s whereabouts are presently unknown because of the worldwide arrest warrant.
