Man convicted of part in scam where woman lost €90,000

A man convicted over his role in a scam which saw a vulnerable woman hand over her life savings of some €90,000 will be sentenced next week.

Michael O’Brien (24), of Old Castle Drive, Clondalkin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to four sample charges of deception on dates between October 2015 and November 2015. He has no previous convictions.

Garda Dermot English told Derek Cooney, prosecuting, that the woman, who was being treated as an outpatient in the psychiatric ward in St James’s Hospital, was also acting as a carer for her 95-year-old mother.

She told gardaí that one day a man called to her home and said she needed to have her driveway repaved or the postman would trip and sue her. She agreed and paid €7,500 for the work. She said the same man then suggested he would paint her house after telling her it was “going to fall down”. She paid €1,500 for this but the work was never completed.

Garda English said some time later the woman received a call from a person purporting to be an accountant with a bank. He told her he had heard she was being scammed by a group of Travellers and could help her to get the money back.

The caller told the woman if she paid him in instalments of €5,000 he would get her “a big cheque for €76,000”. The woman agreed to this and met O’Brien in a number of locations including the carpark of St James’s Hospital where she was being treated. She regularly withdrew sums of €5,000 from two separate accounts and handed it over until she was left with just €93.

Garda English said when the woman went to gardaí­ she told them she was due to meet the same man the following day in the carpark of St James’s Hospital to hand over a further €5,000.

An operation was established and gardaí moved in to arrest O’Brien when they spotted him meeting the woman.

O’Brien claimed on his arrest that he was working for someone else and that he only got €600 after agreeing to collect more than €80,000 from the woman over a number of different meetings.

Garda English said O’Brien would not provide him with any information about the other people involved in the scheme.

‘Bossman’

O’Brien claimed he was working for “a bossman” but agreed that he had paved the woman’s driveway and she had been overcharged by at least €5,000.

He said he owed €4,000 to “the bossman” and he agreed to regularly meet the woman to collect cash in an effort to pay back this debt.

Mr Cooney told Judge Greally that the pleas were accepted on the basis that they were representative of 10 counts.

Keith Spencer, defending, said the Director of Public Prosecutions accepted his client’s pleas of guilty on the basis his culpability was limited to €20,000.

Judge Greally said she had difficulty accepting that O’Brien was not the ultimate beneficiary of the €90,000 the woman was conned out of but said she would sentence him on the basis the DPP accepting his responsibility was €20,000.

Mr Spencer said his client’s role was to collect the money from the woman and hand it over to someone else. He said O’Brien’s wife had sold her car and his family had given him money to raise €20,000 for the victim.

O’Brien has not been in receipt of social welfare for a number of years and he earns a living through doing “odd jobs”, counsel told Judge Greally.

The judge remanded O’Brien on continuing bail and adjourned the case to March 24th for sentence.