A 60-YEAR-OLD financial adviser was yesterday sentenced to 10 years in jail for money laundering more than £3 million stolen in the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast in December 2004.
Ted Cunningham of Woodbine Lodge, Farran, Co Cork, had denied all 10 charges of money laundering but was convicted last month on all counts on majority verdicts after a 45-day trial at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.
Imposing sentence yesterday, Judge Con Murphy said it was a very serious offence involving a very large sum of money of more than £3 million and a variety of methods of disposal or laundering including many which involved innocent people.
“There is no doubt but that there was premeditation and planning involved in the offences and during the trial itself, he persisted right to the end with a concocted alibi that the Bulgarians were buying a pit in Shinrone ,” said Judge Murphy.
“It was a reasonably well constructed alibi and its genesis may have been before the Northern Bank raid took place,” said Judge Murphy, adding that Cunningham had also persisted with a claim that he was coerced by gardaí into making certain admissions.
Cunningham had claimed that an off-camera interview memo in which he admitted knowing the money was from the Northern Bank raid and that former Bank of Scotland (Ireland) chairman Phil Flynn was behind the money laundering had been made under duress.
“He persisted right to the end of his trial that these various admissions were as a result of illness, lack of sleep, threats or inducements.” Judge Murphy said both the jury and he, in a hearing without the jury, had found the admissions to have been made “freely and voluntarily”.
There were some mitigating factors in Cunningham’s favour including his age, poor health in that he suffers from a blood disorder, and the fact that he had no previous convictions and had previously been of blameless character.
But Judge Murphy said that taking all the circumstances into account, he was sentencing him to 10 years on each of the 10 counts the sentences to run concurrently. He backdated the sentence to March 27th last when Cunningham was taken into custody.
Earlier, Judge Murphy had imposed a three-year suspended sentence on Cunningham’s son, Timothy John Cunningham (33), from Church View, Farran, who had pleaded guilty three weeks into the trial to a single count of money laundering.
Judge Murphy said he accepted the evidence of case officers that Cunningham jnr’s role in the money laundering operation was “minor” involving simply handling, sorting and storing the huge haul of cash for his father.
“He was merely a pawn, facilitating his father by counting, sorting and making some deliveries – he was under the influence of his father at the time and that was why he had any involvement and he was in no way the originator of the crime,” said Judge Murphy.
Judge Murphy said that for Cunningham jnr it took “courage to plead guilty, which he did, in defiance of his father” and he noted that he had also facilitated the State in bringing the prosecution by returning voluntarily to Ireland from the US when he did not have to do so.
He also noted that Cunningham jnr had no previous convictions and he believed that his guilty plea was an indication of his remorse and he accepted the evidence of Supt Seán Healy that Cunningham jnr was unlikely to reoffend.
He also noted that he had a serious medical condition involving epileptic fits which he was able to control with medication and he said that, taking all these mitigating factors into account, he believed the appropriate penalty was a three-year suspended jail term.
Judge Murphy refused an application by the prosecution counsel, Tom O’Connell, for the State to be awarded the costs in the case, saying that the application for free legal aid had been properly made on Cunningham snr’s behalf and had been properly granted.
