Solicitor avoids jail for mortgage fraud

A Carlow solicitor, who took out a fraudulent mortgage after his father’s law firm got into trouble with the Law Society, has avoided a prison sentence.

Declan McEvoy, aged 50, was principal at the criminal law firm, William Early Solicitors, in Carlow town, when his father’s firm, JM McEvoy in Gorey, was being investigated. His father had also previously been state solicitor in the Wexford town.

The Law Society allowed Mr McEvoy Sr to retire from the firm on the condition his son took it over. Declan McEvoy later used the €297,000 he fraudulently obtained from AIB in order to clear debts in his father’s firm.