€25.7m fine for convicted Holleeder cohort

Real estate trader Jan Dirk Paarlberg has to pay a fine of €25,7 million to the state. The court in Haarlem ruled that the 56-year-old received most of that amount by laundering the money notorious Dutch felon Willem Holleeder extorted from real estate magnate Willem Endstra. Paarlberg was convicted for his alleged role in the scheme, which netted him about seventeen million euro between December 2002 and January 2004 from Endstra. Before Endstra was murdered in 2004 he declared that Paarlberg put him under pressure to transfer the money to Paarlberg's businesses. Holleeder served time in prison for this extortion. Paarlberg also appealed the roughly four-and-a-half year prison sentence he received in May 2012 for fraud and forgery. The judge in the case reduced the sentence due to the publicity surrounding the crime and ensuing trial. Paarlberg continues to deny the allegations. He has filed an appeal for the prison term, and will also appeal the fine.