Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich’s ex-wife Irina sues her former personal assistant for £19million after villa fiasco
Irina Abramovich says her PA destroyed her 'trust' with enormous overspends, botched renovations, and nepotism
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THE ex-wife of billionaire Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is suing her former PA - claiming she cost her at least £19 MILLION.
Furious Irina Abramovich, 49, says she was forced to sack her “executive manager” Cynthia Hoffmann after she “destroyed” her “trust and confidence”.
In an incredible 31-page writ, Irina accuses her one-time assistant of a string of blunders - and lifts the lid on her own lavish lifestyle for the first time.
She tells how Ms Hoffmann hired her “dangerous” boyfriend - a former African mercenary linked to the Hell’s Angels - as a bodyguard and wasted a fortune on property.
The writ says Ms Hoffmann, 54, was tasked with buying a luxury St Tropez villa - but paid a “grossly excessive” price, leaving Irina £17.3 million out of pocket.
And it claims the former PA also tried to take a kickback from the £30 million deal, while hundreds of thousands of pounds more were wasted on bungled renovations
They included a hi-tech electric anti-mosquito system that builders forgot to hook up to the mains, an electric security fence to keep wild boar out that did not work and a swimming pool that turned guests’ hair GREEN.
A garden watering system was also wrongly connected to the drinking water supply, sending utility bills soaring by an extra £66,000.
Ms Hoffmann is also alleged to have supervised £3.3 million of building work at two Paris apartments which went wrong, the writ claims.
It says one blunder left Irina, who got £155 million when she split from Roman in 2007, without a “suitable cooling system” for her “wine cave”.
Irina, a former Aeroflot air stewardess, ordered “representatives” to investigate Ms Hoffman after sacking her in September 2015.
Ms Hoffmann, who is believed to be Swiss, began working for Irina in May 2010 as a PA.
She was later promoted to “executive manager” and put in charge of Irina’s finances.
Lawyers for Irina say she has “no experience of business and limited understanding of financial and commercial matters” and has to rely “upon trusted agents to manage her substantial personal assets and financial affairs”.
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In her role, Ms Hoffmann ran Irina’s “family office” in London and supervised her European properties in St Tropez, Paris and Sardinia.
Court papers show she was also paid “substantial monies” directly from the Chelsea tycoon, who is worth £5.2 billion.
The cash was funnelled into a Swiss-based company, the documents disclose.
But things began to unravel soon after, Irina alleges.
In August 2012, Irina asked Ms Hoffmann to find a “suitable property” in St Tropez, France.
Ms Hoffmann found a luxury villa, called Sofie’s Choice, but allegedly demanded the agents give her a cut of their commission from the sale.
The price of the villa was around £30 million, with the agents taking 3.5 per cent from the seller - a sum of just over £1 million.
There is no evidence Ms Hoffmann did take the cut she asked for, but Irina’s lawyers now want her to reveal any “secret profit” she took from the deal.
Worse still, an expert later appointed by Irina’s lawyers later found the property was worth only around £12.7 million when it was bought, meaning Irina lost £17.3 million in the deal.
Her lawyers say Ms Hoffmann “deliberately omitted to ensure that the property was professionally valued” because of her own “personal financial interest in the amount of the price”.
Work on Sofie’s Choice began in late 2012, but Ms Hoffmann is accused of wasting millions on the bungled project.
One contractor was paid £25,000 for a UV light “pool manager” system which was “not appropriate” and had to be replaced.
Another installed an electric perimeter fence “to deter wild boar and pigs” from coming into the grounds.
But workers later found it had not been connected to the power supply and so was not electrified.
A total of 36 mosquito repellant “sound devices” were put in around the villa’s grounds but were not hooked up to the power, meaning Irina and her guests “were frequently bitten by mosquitoes”.
And despite Irina demanding the swimming pool only be cleaned with “ecological products”, staff used “large amounts of copper sulphate” instead.
It “resulted in the hair of some of those who swam in the pool turning green”, the writ reveals.
When Irina confronted Ms Hoffmann, she allegedly claimed it was “sabotage”.
The pool was later declared “unsafe for use” and had to be professionally repaired.
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Elsewhere, builders wrongly hooked up the garden watering system to the drinking water mains, sending the cost of Irina’s bills soaring by £66,000.
And in February 2013, Ms Hoffmann paid £101,000 to a firm to carry out work on the guardhouse and poolhouse at the villa.
In fact the company was owned by the PA’s relative and no invoices were ever filed - meaning it was “difficult to identify whether and what, if any, works were actually undertaken”.
In June 2014, Ms Hoffmann ditched a security firm hired to offer protection for Irina, her family and friends while staying at Sofie’s Choice.
Instead she hired a new firm run by Vincent Pelat, who she was having “an intimate relationship” with.
Irina’s investigators found Pelat was “not a fit and proper person to be responsible for Irina Abramovich and her children’s security”.
The writ confirms Pelat had been “associated with the Hell’s Angels”, had “been a mercenary in Africa” and was described by Ms Hoffmann’s own sister as “a dangerous man”.
Ms Hoffmann is accused of not flagging Pelat’s past, risking Irina and the five Abramovich children’s safety.
The writ also says Ms Hoffmann failed to pay £93,000 of VAT on Irina’s London office, sparking an HMRC investigation in August 2015.
Tax inspectors turned up at the Belgravia HQ, which caused “disruption and damaged the morale of the London office staff”.
Ms Hoffmann is also accused of not handling her own employment properly, forcing Irina to hire KPMG to carry out an audit.
KPMG found Irina owed the taxman another £505,000 on behalf of Ms Hoffmann for unpaid national insurance and tax, the writ claims.
Other allegations in the lawsuit include Ms Hoffmann paying £5,000 a month to her sister for “bookkeeping services” from the Swiss firm.
Ms Hoffmann was finally sacked in September 2015.
No total figure has been included in the claim as many of Irina’s losses are still being calculated, her lawyers say.
Ms Hoffmann is currently taking Irina to an employment tribunal in London, claiming unfair dismissal.