Gang member appealing sentence for money laundering seeks high-end car back from State

A “mid-to-high level” international gang member appealing the length of his jail sentence for “industrial scale” money laundering has also applied to get his high-end car back from the State, the Court of Appeal heard today.

Thomas Rooney (53) had his Mercedes S350, worth around €50,000, forfeited to the State by an order from the Special Criminal Court and is seeking its return while also appealing the length of his six-year sentence for money laundering.

Rooney, of Betaghstown, Bettystown, Co Meath, was sentenced in January last year after he pleaded guilty at the Special Criminal Court to offences under Section 7 of the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing) Act 2010. He was found to be in possession of €289,770 and £65,025 (€77,000) in crime cash in a blue Nike holdall at Spar car park, Donore Road, Drogheda on May 11th, 2020.

Rooney, who was described at sentencing as a “mid-to-high level” member of a transnational crime group, also pleaded guilty to possessing €254,840 in a black holdall also at Donore Road and to possessing €7,650 at North Road, Drogheda, on the same date. He was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment with the final 12 months suspended.

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Gardaí also seized the black Mercedes S350 that the Special Criminal Court heard was in possession of Rooney’s chauffeur service company, EBT Executive Travel Ltd.

The court heard that the defendant had admitted counting €7,650 in crime cash from an envelope in the vehicle and had also sent co-ordinating texts from a phone plugged into the car.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt noted that Rooney used the car to transport the cash in what was an “industrial scale money laundering” operation.

Mr Justice Hunt previously remarked that Rooney would have been better off using a “cheap banger off done deal” rather than the “high-end” Mercedes in question.

At the Court of Appeal on Thursday, John D Fitzgerald SC, for Rooney, in applying for the car’s return, told the court that while the car was used in the money laundering operation its use was “tangential”.

Mr Fitzgerald said his client had ownership of the vehicle through his company and that Rooney had gotten into financial difficulty regarding his chauffeur business at the start of the Covid lockdown in 2020 and began using it himself.

Mr Fitzgerald said Rooney had worked hard all of his life in a number of businesses and had “little” involvement in criminality. He said his client was going to have to re-establish himself at the end of his jail term and that the car was an “integral item” of his past and possible future business.

Garret Baker SC, for the State, said the car was used in facilitating the operation regarding the proceeds of crime upwards of €600,000.

Regarding Rooney’s sentence appeal, Mr Fitzgerald said his client was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment while the main focus of the Garda investigation, his co-accused Jason Reed, received seven years’ jail time. Mr Fitzgerald said that Reed had pleaded not guilty, made no admissions, had more involvement in the operation and was of a “higher level of value”.

Mr Fitzgerald said both Reed and Rooney had been given a headline sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment before mitigation but that his client’s guilty plea and early admissions saw Rooney receive just one year’s less jail-time than Reed, which amounted to a “disparity”.

Counsel said Rooney, who appeared in the court with a respiratory oxygen tank, had breathing and lung difficulties throughout his life and that prison would be more difficult for his client than for others.

Mr Fitzgerald said the personal and medical circumstances of Rooney and Reid were “very different” and that this was “not adequately taken into account” at sentencing.

Mr Baker said that Rooney’s six-year sentence was “sound and had to be available” to the sentencing judge regarding an admitted joint enterprise for an international criminal organisation, of which he was a “trusted, mid-to-high level member”.

Mr Baker said Rooney was “broadly in the same bracket” as Reed, and that Rooney was the “directing man on the ground”.

Counsel said Rooney had nine previous convictions, which included criminal damage and public order, but still enjoyed an overall 40 per cent discount from his headline sentence, leaving less than half the maximum sentence of 14 years to be served.

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy, presiding, said the three-judge, non-jury court would reserve judgment in the matter.

In July of 2021, Reed (41) of Maelduin, Dunshaughlin, Co Meath, pleaded guilty to possession of the cash in the blue Nike bag on the same date and location but also pleaded guilty possessing crime cash at his home address after gardaí found €32,330 and £441 there, despite Reed having no source of income.

In May of 2021, Rooney’s then partner, Catherine Dawson (46), of Betaghstown, Co Meath, and with whom he has two children, was given a fully suspended sentence by the Special Criminal Court for her role in moving the money.

Dawson also admitted to possession of the contents of the Nike bag at the car park at Donore Road. A carer who used a company car as a cover for transporting the money, she was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison but it was suspended on condition she be of good behaviour for five years.