A MAN who ran a city-centre brothel operation targeted in a Garda investigation into organised prostitution was yesterday jailed for three years and fined €24,000.
Martin Morgan (44) had been convicted in February of organising prostitution and running a brothel in Dublin.
Morgan had told gardaí after his arrest on October 10th, 2005, that he had no business interest in Ireland and was in Dublin on that occasion to visit his children and to organise a trip to Australia for one of his sons.
Gardaí saw him coming and going from the apartment block at Bachelors Walk several times during the surveillance operation.
In the early hours of September 25th, 2005, they saw him drive to Malton House where he had a brief exchange with the woman who worked as a receptionist in the brothel call-centre based there.
Morgan, formerly of Blacksheep Road, Blanchardstown, and with addresses at Blackstock Road, London, and at Herbert Lane, Ballsbridge, denied three charges at the start of his trial.
The 18-day trial had its genesis in a Garda operation called "Quest", which was established to target organised prostitution in Dublin.
The campaign was directed by Det Insp Pat Lordon and involved surveillance of various apartments, including that at Bachelors Walk, and of individuals frequenting them.
Officers raided three premises on the night of October 10th, 2005, and as well as arresting Morgan and English national Deena Edridge in the sitting room of the Bachelors Walk apartment, they also recovered a cache of mobile telephones used in the brothel operation.
Edridge was jailed for 12 months last April after pleading guilty to allowing the apartment to be used as a brothel.
She claimed in evidence on day 15 of Morgan's trial that she owned "the whole escort operation" but that she let her "employees" believe there was someone else in charge because she had been robbed twice in Ireland and because of the numerous Garda raids.
She agreed with prosecuting counsel Fergal Foley that the brothel "made several thousand euro on average per day".
However, she denied she would earn €2 million a year as the owner, saying, "A lot of the money was put back in the business."
Edridge also agreed under questioning that she made a profit of €4,100 from the 7pm-5am shift on October 6th, 2005, which she said was "the least busy day" that week. She told defence counsel Michael O'Higgins SC that Morgan was a "good friend" with whom she "occasionally slept".
Edridge claimed she leased four other premises for the brothel operation: an apartment at Malton House in the International Financial Services Centre which was used as a call centre for the business; an apartment at Herbert Lane in the Ballsbridge area to which gardaí followed Morgan and Edridge; and two other premises at Donnybrook Court in Dublin 4 and and at Ardee House, Rathmines, Dublin 6. Detective Garda Larry Duggan said one of the documents found at Herbert Lane was an unsigned six-month contract naming Morgan as "employer" and Edridge as "employee".