THE WIFE of a former Las Vegas poker dealer has told the Central Criminal Court she helped her husband make the deadly poison ricin in their Nevada home.
Teresa Engle told Tom O’Connell SC, prosecuting, that she helped Essam Eid to make the toxin following instructions Mr Eid had found on the internet. She said they were intending to use the ricin to carry out a contract killing ordered by Mr Eid’s co-accused in this trial.
Sharon Collins (45), Kildysart Road, Ennis, and Mr Eid (52), an Egyptian man with a Las Vegas address, have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to kill PJ, Robert and Niall Howard between August 1st, 2006, and September 26th, 2006. Ms Collins also denies hiring Mr Eid to shoot the three men.
Mr Eid denies demanding €100,000 from Robert Howard to cancel the contracts. He also denies breaking into the Howard family business and stealing two computers, some computer cables, a digital clock and a poster of old Irish money and then handling the stolen items.
Ms Engle said Mr Eid had made the ricin using castor beans he bought over the internet together with acetone and a third ingredient. She said Mr Eid put the powder in a contact lens case and took the case with him when the two of them went to Ireland to carry out the contract killing on Mr Howard and his two sons.
Ms Engle told the court she had been given a letter of immunity from prosecution by the Garda. She agreed she had pleaded guilty to extortion in a separate case in the US and was currently awaiting sentence for that.
She told Mr O’Connell that Mr Eid ran a website called Hitmanforhire.com which he had set up in February or March 2006. He used the name Tony Luciano. She said several people contacted the site to arrange contract killings and several more had been in touch looking for work. In August 2006, Ms Collins contacted the website looking to take a contract out on PJ, Robert and Niall Howard.
Ms Engle said she had overheard phone conversations between Mr Eid and Ms Collins, who had a very strong Irish accent.
E-mails were sent under the name Lyingeyes. At the end of August, a deposit arrived comprising of €15,000 in a package with a pair of gaming goggles.
Ms Engle said she then travelled to Ireland where she met Ashram “Ash” Gharbeiah, a friend of Mr Eid. She stayed at the Queen’s Hotel, Ennis, and made herself familiar with Ennis, particularly the business park where the Howards’ property business was.
She said she wasn’t sure what Ash planned to do. “I know he had several medicines that were supposed to cause a heart attack or somebody to die, and he was going to put them in wine or liquor.”
He decided the plan “was not doable, that he couldn’t do it”. She thought Ash left Ireland the following day.
She went to Spain to familiarise herself with the area around PJ Howard’s apartment in Fuengirola. She was supposed to use keys Ms Collins had left for her to get into the apartment but had been feeling ill and returned to the US via Ireland. She said Mr Eid was furious when she returned home and told him the plan had not been carried out.
He contacted Ms Collins and told her he would do the job himself but would need more money.
Ms Engle said she had seen an e-mail from Ms Collins giving details of an American Express card in the name of PJ Howard. Flights for herself and Mr Eid as well as a hotel room were booked using these details.
The second trip to Ireland took place in September 2006. They stayed at the Two Mile Inn in Ennis. Mr Eid was trying to contact Ms Collins by phone and e-mail but with no success.
Ms Engle told Paul O’Higgins SC, defending Ms Collins, that she had married her previous husband, Todd Engle, three times.
She said she had married Mr Eid in Las Vegas while both he and she were married. She lived with Mr Eid and his wife Lisa. She agreed with counsel for Mr Eid, David Sutton SC, that the living arrangement was “bizarre”.
She said she had acted under the “total control” of Mr Eid. She agreed that she had pleaded guilty to extortion after her involvement in a scam in California in September 2006. She said she was not “a criminal and a fraudster” although she agreed with that she was “an incompetent criminal”.
The trial continues.