A Waterford businessman who raped a prostitute in a hotel after hiring her by phone through a Cork-based escort agency has been jailed for five year.
Billy Keogh (46), a married man and father of six, of Wilder, Kilmeaden was found guilty in February by a jury at the Central Criminal Court of raping the 26-year-old Croatian woman on May 21st, 2006. The victim claimed Keogh told her he was a garda and also threatened to throw her out of the hotel window.
The jury found him guilty of rape by a 10-2 majority but found him not guilty of stealing €1,200 cash from the woman, who was working for the Red Velvets Escorts Agency based in Cork.
Keogh denied both charges during his six-day trial.
He told gardaí he was a respectable businessman running a Waterford refuse company and had been using the Red Velvets agency for two years to have paid sex with prostitutes assigned by it.
The victim rejected €30,000 compensation offered her by Keogh. She told Mr Justice Barry White she wouldn't accept the money unless directed by the court.
Mr Justice White - who noted she had been threatened by phone on the day she arrived in Ireland to give evidence at the trial - said the court wouldn't direct her on the compensation issue.
The court had been told previously that she had indicated to gardaí she was not interested in "voluntarily accepting" the compensation.
Mr Justice White directed that Keogh's name be placed on the register of sex offenders and said: "It is quite clear to me that you are a man of good character and that you have brought shame and disgrace on yourself and shame and disgrace on your wife and children."
Mr Justice White suspended the last three years of sentence.
He said he was impressed by how Keogh re-established himself after losing his business in 2004 and acknowledged that he also had an elderly dependant mother and seven employees to support.