A solicitor caught with cocaine in his wallet during a professional visit to Mountjoy Prison has been granted a strike out after he donated €1,250 to a drug addiction treatment centre.
Dublin-based lawyer Aonghus McCarthy (32) who insisted someone else put the drugs in his wallet at a party, had been told last month he would be spared a criminal conviction for the offence if he gave the money to the Merchant Quay drug project.
Judge Gerry Jones had said, at Dublin District Court, that Mr McCarthy was in a "noble profession" but was being treated the same as any other defendant and would get " one chance and one chance only".
Cocaine worth €26 and weighing 0.33 grammes was found when his wallet was searched, the court heard.
The case resumed on Tuesday when Judge Gráinne O’Neill, now presiding, was told by defence solicitor Miska Hanahoe that there was a receipt to confirm he had made the donation. She affirmed the order made by her colleague and struck out the case.
Excused from attending
The solicitor had been excused from attending the hearing but was at the courthouse to represent his clients in other cases.
He had originally been charged in November under the Misuse of Drugs Act for conveying a controlled drug into Mountjoy Prison or to a person in the prison, on February 8th, 2017, a charge he denied.
But in January an additional but less serious charge for unlawful possession of the drug was brought in the case.
On February 5th when the case resumed, Judge Jones noted the State was not proceeding with the more serious allegation for conveying the drug into the prison, which can carry a possible 12-month sentence.
A guilty plea was then entered to the less serious charge for possession.
Judge Jones accepted the solicitor probably did not know the cocaine was in his wallet. He had ordered that the case could be struck if he donated €1,250 to the Merchant Quay drug project.