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Plaza Hotel owner turns self in over $3.9B bond scheme probe

The owner of the Plaza Hotel turned himself in to police in India Friday after the country’s top court issued a warrant when he failed to show up for a contempt hearing in an ongoing probe into whether he failed to pay back $3.9 billion to investors in an illegal bond scheme.   

Subrata Roy, 65 — a prominent Indian businessman whose $11 billion company, Sahara, owns the landmark Central Park hotel — had previously claimed he couldn’t make the Wednesday court date because he had to take care of his ailing 92-year-old mother, but the court  ordered him to show.

When he didn’t, police were dispatched to track him down.

“If other directors can appear, why can’t you?” the court demanded, noting that  “the arms of this court are very long.”

After Roy’s Friday surrender, his son, Seemanto Roy, told reporters his father is cooperating with the India Supreme Court order.

Authorities said that when police went to look for the elder Roy, he wasn’t at his home — or at his mother’s bedside.

In a woe-is-me statement Friday, the eccentric, mustachioed billionaire said he was consulting with doctors for his mom when police came to his house.

“I am not that human being who will abscond,” he said. “I’ve started hating myself. Now, I can’t handle this level of agony and humiliation. They are bullying and indulging in character assassination.”

Known for taking out full-page ads in newspapers to defend himself, Roy on Thursday took out an ad blasting a two-judge panel for rejecting his request to tend to his mother.

“If someone is insistent to take me away from my mother before she attains at least some recovery, what should a son do?” the ad read.

“My earnest request to the administration is to help me on humanitarian grounds, as it involves the deep-rooted emotions of a son towards his mother.”

Roy’s firm is battling India’s Securities and Exchange Board over allegations it didn’t comply with a 2012 court order to pay back billions it got from investors in a bond scheme that was found to be illegal.

The company says it has returned the money.

Roy, who sponsors India’s national cricket team and owns TV stations, a hospital, retail stores and part of India’s sole Formula One racing team, is due back in court March 4.

With Post Wire Services