A MAN has been given a five-year sentence for handling stolen money which was part of the €7.66 million bank robbery following the kidnapping of a bank employee, his girlfriend and her family in what was described at the time as the biggest robbery to take place in the Republic.
Gardaí accepted that Mark Donoghue (40), who was caught with €1.74 million later that same day, did not know that the victims had been held at gunpoint in their Kildare home the previous night.
The Bank of Ireland employee was ordered to go to work at his branch in College Green, Dublin, where he arranged for the money to be placed in bags before it was handed out to the gang. He had been given photographs of his girlfriend and her family and the home of another staff member to show his colleagues before the cash was taken.
Donoghue, a married father of two, Killeen, Legen, Co Longford, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possessing the cash knowing it to be or being reckless as to whether it was the proceeds of criminal conduct at the M50 on-ramp southbound junction with the N3 on February 27th, 2009. The charge carries a maximum penalty of 14 years.
Donoghue had run a successful company providing bricklaying services to construction firms but the business collapsed, he was in severe financial difficulty and was in the process of being sued. He agreed to hold the cash for €5,000 and was to pass it on to other criminals the following day.
Judge Patricia Ryan said she accepted Donoghue had been unaware that there had been a kidnapping and that he had been in financial difficulties. She imposed a five-year sentence and suspended the final two. She backdated the sentence to February 2009 when he went into custody.
Supt Patrick Mangan told Shane Costelloe, prosecuting, that gardaí acting on confidential information in relation to the stolen money had an address in Great Western Villas, Dublin, under surveillance hours after the robbery.
Donoghue was observed entering a house in the estate before leaving with another man carrying holdall bags. This second man left and a third man arrived before the bags were placed in an Opel Astra. The third man then got into a Volkswagen while Donoghue got into the Astra. Gardaí surrounded the vehicles but Donoghue fled the scene. He was later apprehended.
The holdall containing the cash was found in the boot of the Astra and analysis linked it to the proceeds of the robbery that day.
Supt Mangan agreed with Mr Costelloe that Donoghue never received the €5,000 and gardaí were satisfied that he knew nothing about the false imprisonment of the bank staff, his girlfriend and her family the previous day.
He said Donoghue, who has one previous conviction for a public order offence, acknowledged that he knew the cash had come from an illegitimate source and that it had been the proceeds of crime.