Drug dealer has €88,645 in assets seized

A jailed city centre drug dealer has had almost €88,645 of his assets confiscated by the State by order of Judge Desmond Hogan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Gary O’Reilly (aged 30) of Canon Lillis Avenue, Dublin 1 was jailed for five years by Judge Hogan at, last October after he pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to supply at Crinian Strand on January 15, 2003. He had five previous convictions, including a drug offence.

Detective Garda Fergal Harrington told Mr Paul Carroll BL, prosecuting, that the Criminal Assets Bureau had agreed following an investigation of O’Reilly’s assets to the payment by him of €88,644.81.

Judge Hogan had ruled at a hearing last July that neither Wedgewood Finance nor a company called D and G Refuse Disposals Limited of which O’Reilly had been a director until his arrest had any role in the application to seize the assets.

Both had claimed ownership of a BMW car which O’Reilly claimed in evidence at that hearing that he bought personally.

Detective Sergeant Stephen Courage told Mr Carroll, at the October 2005 hearing, that the house in which the drugs were found was the home of Jacqueline Griffin who was jailed for six years with one year suspended by Judge Hogan on January 15, 2004, after she pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine worth €100,000.

When gardaí entered the premises they found Griffin and a second man, in the presence of Griffin’s nine-year-old son, dividing and preparing the cocaine for distribution .

Det Sgt Courage said O’Reilly ran from the house as soon as he was aware of the garda presence but was spotted throwing drugs in the garden. He was later arrested at his mother’s home.

Det Sgt Courage said it was initially alleged that O’Reilly was also jointly responsible with Griffin and the second man for more cocaine, worth an estimated €86,000 found outside the house but he denied the charges.

When the Director of Public Prosecutions decided on the morning of his trial to reduce the value of the cocaine O’Reilly was alleged to have in his possession, he changed his plea to guilty, accepting responsibility for the drugs retrieved from the garden and a further smaller quantity found in the kitchen of Griffin’s home.

Det Sgt Courage told Mr Michael O’Higgins SC (with Mr Cormac Quinn BL), defending, that the Director of Public Prosecutions didn’t (not) draw a distinction between Griffin’s and O’Reilly’s level of involvement in the offence.

Judge Hogan described O’Reilly’s level of co-operation as "minimalist" up to the date of his trial but took into account that he had changed his plea to guilty on the first morning of his trial. He accepted that O’Reilly had less drugs than Griffin but he said, unlike Griffin, he had a previous drug conviction.

He sentenced O’Reilly to five years in prison but suspended the last year on condition that he keep the peace and be of good behaviour for three years and that he get treatment for his drug addiction.