A Clare businessman who ran a Dublin city-centre brothel and chalked up a tax bill of nearly £2 million over 11 years has been jailed for 18 months by Judge Kevin Haugh.
Tom McDonnell (50), of Grattan Street, Dublin, and originally from Cooraclare, Co Clare, was also fined a total of £12,000 for tax offences.
He pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to brothelkeeping between September 4th, 1999, and February 12th, 2000.
He admitted three counts of knowingly or wilfully failing to make tax returns between 1987 and 1998 and to three counts of knowingly or wilfully making incorrect returns for the years 1992 to 1997.
Judge Haugh imposed a £2,000 fine for each of the six tax offences to be paid within 18 months, with a further six-month sentence in default of payment.
The court heard that McDonnell was convicted of brothel-keeping at the Central Criminal Court in 1991 and sentenced to 11 days' community care.
Det Sgt Kevin Ring, of the Criminal Assets Bureau, told Mr Patrick Gageby SC, prosecuting, that McDonnell owned four premises in Dublin and one in Clare. He also had various funds invested in accounts in the Isle of Man and in the Republic.
Det Sgt Ring said that in the late 1980s and early 90s McDonnell ran a health club.
He declared between £35,000 and £42,000 for the years covered by the charges but he was in fact earning between £160,000 and £190,000 a year.
He bought a helicopter in 1996 for £140,000 and sold it for £150,000 in the same year.
A tax inspector, referred to in court as "Revenue Bureau Officer Number Four", said that to date the Revenue Commissioners had retrieved £197,000 of the £1.88 million owed by McDonnell and hoped to claim back a further £440,000 when houses he owned on Chester Road and Grattan Street were sold.
McDonnell had already sold properties he owned at Richmond Hill and Upper Stephen Street.
Bureau Officer Number Four said McDonnell had signed an agreement last July to repay £75,000 within six months but to date it had not been paid and he had made no attempt to compensate the Revenue Commissioners.
Judge Haugh said he was satisfied that McDonnell had been brothel-keeping for a considerable time and purposely failed to make returns or made incorrect returns.
Judge Haugh said McDonnell was given a chance in 1991 when charged with similar offences and didn't take it. That made the case more serious.
"It's a very serious case and the evasion of tax was on a very high scale. A custodial sentence is inevitable," he added.
Det Sgt Mark Kavanagh said McDonnell was arrested on February 11th, 2000, following a five-month surveillance operation on a house on Grattan Street as part of Operation Gladiator, a large-scale investigation into organised prostitution.
During the surveillance various men were interviewed leaving the house and admitted paying £60 in return for sexual favours for half an hour.
When gardaí searched the house there was one customer present, two women and McDonnell. They retrieved a number of business cards and relocation cards containing McDonnell's mobile phone number and £2,500 in cash.
One of the women made a statement and said that £20 went towards "the house" and the girls kept £40.
The brothel would have up to 30 clients a day.
Mr Barry White SC (with Mr Patrick Hunt SC), for McDonnell, pleaded for leniency and said that because of the nature of his client's brothel business it was perhaps self-evident why he didn't make legitimate tax returns.
Judge Haugh refused McDonnell leave to appeal.