Poker dealer guilty of demanding money from 'hitman target'

A Clare woman has been found guilty of soliciting a former Las Vegas poker dealer to kill her partner and his two sons while her co-accused Egyptian Essam Eid (aged 52) has been found guilty of demanding €100,000 with menaces from the intended victim.

The jury of eight men and four women took almost eight hours to find Sharon Collins (aged 45) with an address at Ballybeg House, Kildysart Road, Ennis guilty of conspiring to kill P.J, Robert and Niall Howard between August 1 and September 26 2006.

The jury also found her co-accused Essam Eid (aged 52), an Egyptian with a Las Vegas address guilty of demanding €100,000 with menaces from Robert Howard on September 26, 2006.

He was found not guilty of robbing the offices of Downes & Howard the previous night but guilty of handling a stolen Toshiba laptop on September 26 and being in possession of items stolen from the offices in room 218 of the Two Mile Inn Hotel in Limerick on September 27, the date of his arrest.

After almost 11 hours of deliberation the jury told Mr Justice Roderick Murphy that they were unable to reach a verdict on the charges of conspiracy concerning Eid.

Mr Justice Murphy thanked the jury for “the role you played and the way you played it.” He exempted them from jury service for the next 20 years.

During the eight week trial the jury heard that Ms Collins had been desperate to marry PJ Howard but he had refused to marry her because they could not have a legally binding pre-nuptial agreement under Irish law.

They had met in November 1998 after the death of Mr Howard’s partner Bernie Lyons. Ms Collins and her two sons moved in with Mr Howard for Christmas and never left.

They had a close relationship and Ms Collins nursed him through a quadruple heart bypass in 2000.

After the death of his wife, from whom he had been separated but had never divorced, from a brain haemorrhage in 2003, Mr Howard asked Ms Collins to marry with him and bought her an engagement ring.

He was concerned that a marriage would affect the inheritance rights of his two sons, Robert and Niall, who had taken over the running of Downes & Howard, the family business, when Mr Howard’s health had become bad. He asked his solicitor to draw up a pre-nuptial agreement but found out it would not be legally binding.

In October 2005 they went to Sorrento in Italy where they made a commitment to each other in an empty church. Before going to Italy they had both signed a document drawn up by Ms Collins swearing that they would not, now or ever, marry one another.

Mr Howard gave this document straight to his solicitor but, the jury heard, that Ms Collins did not give her solicitor a copy until after her arrest.

When they returned from Italy the couple held a “wedding reception” in a Hotel in Spanish Point and told people they had been married. Ms Collins would refer to herself as Sharon Howard.

In November 2006 Ms Collins contacted the website Proxymarriage.com and paid over €1,000 for a Mexican marriage certificate obtained through a proxy marriage in which neither partner is present. Despite confirming that proxy marriages are not legal in Mexico she used the marriage certificate to obtain a passport in the name Sharon Howard.

In April 2005 Ms Collins wrote to the Gerry Ryan Show on RTÉ radio. In the anonymous letter she accused Mr Howard of frequenting prostitutes and transvestites and said she was trying to pluck up courage to leave him.

On August 2, 2006 Ms Collins created the email address [e-mail] and used it to contact the website Hitman.us after searching the net for a contract killer and researching inheritance rights.

The jury heard that the site had been set up in January 2006 from the house Eid shared with his two wives Lisa Eid and Teresa Engle.

A correspondence developed between Ms Collins as Lyingeyes and a man calling himself Tony Luciano with the email address [e-mail].

Ms Collins asked for a hit to be carried out on “three males. One in Spain, two in the west of Ireland. Should look like accident if poss.”

She supplied details of where Mr Howard and his two sons lived and socialised. She suggested that the two brothers could meet with some kind of accident and that Mr Howard’s death could be made to look like suicide brought on by grief at the death of his sons.

Hire_hitman advised her that poison would be a better option for the two brothers and suggested a poison that would bring about a heart attack. He told her that for the three men it would cost $90,000 with a down payment of $45,000, the balance to be paid once the “hit” was carried out.

He contacted Private Brian Buckley who had contacted Hitman.us thinking it was joke. Calling himself Tony he asked him if he was free to do a job in Ireland – three men, two in the west of Ireland, one in Spain.

Sharon Collins exchanged over 70 phone calls and numerous emails with both the Hire_hitman account and phones registered to Eid. A flirtatious tone developed between them. Ms Collins identified herself as “the devil in the red dress” in a photograph sent to identify Mr Howard. She was sent photos of Eid in return.

On August 14th Ms Collins wrote: “Thank you for the photos. Your daughter is beautiful and clearly loves her dad and you’re very handsome yourself. Italian of course!”

She suggested that he brought her for a ride in his yellow sports car if she ever visited Las Vegas.

The following day the reply came “I bet you look so beautiful too. Maybe after we done the business-maybe it will be my pleasure to have dinner with you - you gonna pay for it? Ha Ha Ha Ha.”

On August 15th Ms Collins sent €15,000 in a FedEx delivery along with a pair of goggles for a computer game.

On August 30th Teresa Engle flew to Ireland. There she booked into the Queens Hotel in Ennis and met up with Ashram Gharbeiah, a friend of Mr Eid’s. She told the court that “Ash” planned to poison some “wine or liquor” which he intended to give to Robert and Niall Howard. He intended to use prescription drugs to bring on a heart attack. The plan fell through and Mr Gharbeiah returned to America.

Ms Engle flew to Fuengirola where Mr Howard had an apartment and where he now spent most of his time. She collected the keys to the apartment which had been left for her in the reception of the Las Palmas Hotel by Ms Collins.

She told the jury she began to feel unwell and returned to Ireland without using the keys. She then flew back to America.

Eid flew back to Ireland with Ms Engle on September 24, 2006. They booked into Room 208 in the Two Mile Inn in Limerick.

On September 25th there was a robbery from the offices of Downes & Howard. The Advent computer from reception was taken, with cables, a Toshiba laptop, a digital clock and a poster of old Irish bank notes.

The following evening Eid rang Robert Howard posing as Tony Luciano. He told him he had heard the Howards were missing some computers and that he would be at the house in five minutes.

He gave Robert the Toshiba laptop and told him there was a contract out on the lives of himself, his brother and his father. He offered him the chance to buy himself and his family out of the contract for €100,000.

He showed Robert photographs of himself, his brother and his father and had details directions for getting to their homes.

He arranged to meet Robert the following evening at the Queens Hotel in Ennis. When he had gone, Robert rang the gardaí. They were waiting at the Queens Hotel the following evening when Robert went to meet Eid.

Eid rang him and told him to meet a woman outside the toilets. Robert went as instructed and was met by Teresa Engle. She asked him if he had the money. He asked her if she had the computer.

As she was leaving the hotel Ms Engle was arrested by gardaí. Eid was arrested at the same time.

Ms Collins was arrested in February 2007 after an examination of the Advent computer taken from Downes & Howard, which had been found dumped at the Queens Hotel, revealed emails between Lyingeyes and Hire_hitman.

In April 2007 a contact lens case which tested positive for Ricin was found in Eid’s cell in Limerick Prison.

Mr Justice Murphy remanded both accused in custody until their sentencing in October to allow for medical reports to be compiled for Eid and a psychological assessment to be carried out on Ms Collins.