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It was all a game, and Roger Davidson knew it.
That is the defense for Vickram Bedi, a Chappaqua business owner who is accused of swindling Davidson, a wealthy musician, to the tune of $20 million.
The allegations, detailed in what are known as motion papers, accuse Davidson of being mentally ill, paying Bedi millions to lie to him as part of a role-playing game and then setting him up after a multimillion-dollar hedge fund deal went bad.
“I didn’t do anything to defraud Roger Davidson,” Bedi said in a telephone interview Monday from the Westchester County jail.
Bedi, who is being held on $5 million bail, is due in court today. He is accused of masterminding a six-year scheme to defraud Davidson, an oil-fortune heir who founded Soundbrush Records and the Society for Universal Sacred Music.
Prosecutors claim Bedi and his then-girlfriend, Helga Ingvarsdottir, conned Davidson into believing he was in grave physical danger because his personal computer had been hacked.
Bedi owned Datalink Computer Services in Mount Kisco, and Davidson took his virus-plagued machine there in August 2004.
Bedi, prosecutors allege, told Davidson that the source of the virus came from a remote village in Honduras and, as a result, foreign nationals had access to his computer.
Bedi and Ingvarsdottir entered into a $10.9 million security contract with Davidson and charged his credit card $160,000 a month.
The couple was arrested in November 2010, and Ingvarsdottir pleaded guilty a month later. She likely will not be sentenced until Bedi’s case is resolved.
His new lawyer, Anthony Giordano, is trying to have the first-degree grand larceny indictment against Bedi dismissed. Bedi faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted at trial.
Giordano, in his papers, claimed Davidson has been under psychiatric care for years, with obsessive thoughts that people wanted to harm him. The papers said Davidson uses fantasy play acting to calm his anxiety.
Bedi became an unwitting participant in Davidson’s play acting, his lawyer argued. When Bedi tried to cut ties, Davidson offered “substantial money” to continue. To protect himself, Bedi had Davidson sign papers acknowledging that Bedi would and could tell false stories to Davidson.
Article source: http://www.lohud.com/article/20120214/NEWS/302140043
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