A mentally ill conman who tried to swindle ACE out of $20 million has been jailed for five years.

Maxwell Roberts pretended to be a company director at the international firm to obtain a cheque, but was caught red-handed after suspicious staff alerted the Police.

He defended himself at the sentencing hearing by claiming he has turned his life around while on remand in prison through writing a book — advising others how to protect against fraud.

Magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo described Roberts as “an actor with a massive criminal imagination” upon finding him guilty last year. Jailing him for the maximum five-year term yesterday, he observed: “Society must be protected from him and his anti-social behaviour.”

The defendant, who suffers from a personality disorder according to psychiatric reports, planned the scam while behind bars for a fraud against Opposition Leader Michael Dunkley, during which he impersonated the MP to loot his bank account of $80,000. He then put the plot, involving a bizarre cast of invented characters, into action a day after being released from jail last September.

During a number of calls to ACE, Roberts told the head of human resources, Pandora Wright, that he was a company director named Richard Strauss, although there is no such director of that name. “Mr. Strauss” told Ms Wright an investigator called Kenneth Stevens was flying into Bermuda to launch an investigation into the company’s CEO. He demanded that a $20 million cheque should be left at the company’s reception desk as payment to start the probe.

Ms Wright cottoned on to the hoax, and alerted the authorities. Fraud unit detectives then worked with ACE to produce a fake $20 million cheque and staked out the company’s lobby. They arrested Roberts when he came to pick up the cheque while posing as a messenger named John Singleton. It later emerged that he had made inquiries of a law firm about changing his name to Kenneth Stevens and leaving Bermuda.

During his self-conducted defence, Roberts claimed he was merely a messenger for other shady figures behind the ACE plot, but Mr. Tokunbo rejected this, telling him he planned it himself to “collect the proceeds of his own criminal script of players”.

Although Roberts also defended himself during a subsequent unsuccessful appeal to the Supreme Court, he was represented by lawyer Elizabeth Christopher yesterday. She argued he had not perpetrated a “terribly sophisticated scheme” and that “the whole scheme was effectively exposed the minute he opened his mouth.”

Roberts himself told the Magistrate he has written three books during his time on remand in Westgate, describing two as fictional and one as being on “how to avoid white collar crime.” He claimed a publisher has expressed interest.

“Now I can make money by writing books. Now I can make money without stealing,” added Roberts, who has a lengthy history of offences involving dishonesty.

Mr. Tokunbo responded by saying that if this was the case, he wished him well as “he clearly has some talent and is creative, imaginative and articulate.” However, he added that there was no mitigation in his favour. Although a psychiatric report indicated that Roberts’ mental disorder results in grandiose and narcissistic behaviour, Mr. Tokunbo said it was not deemed to be amenable to treatment.