Man fails in bid to have ‘drug money’ returned
Limerick Courthouse
A MAN has failed in his bid for the return of almost €1,400 in cash which gardai said was the proceeds of drug dealing.
David Killeen, formerly of Casement Avenue, Janesboro and now living in Meelick, made the application under the Police Property Act at Limerick District Court.
Det Garda Brian O’Connor said that on February 5, 2008, gardai searched the Janesboro property under warrant and found 86 grams of cannabis and €281. Quantities of cocaine and cannabis as well as €1,110 in cash were seized by gardai at a follow-up search at a house at Hyde Avenue.
David Killeen was convicted for having drugs for sale or supply in the District Court and an appeal of the conviction at Limerick Circuit Court failed, Det Garda O’Connor said.
“I contested it in court twice and I still contest it,” Mr Killeen told Judge Aeneas McCarthy, maintaining he had been given €800 in cash by Tony Connery, his partner’s grandfather, to pay rent.
“The first I heard of that is today,” Det Garda O’Connor told solicitor John Devane in relation to the claim the money was for rent.
Mr Connery, a former security supervisor at Colbert Station, took to the witness box to tell Judge McCarthy he had given Killeen the money.
“It was my grand-daughter who told me they were in arrears with their rent because the gardai had confiscated it as drug money,” Mr Connery said.
“I have got to know David Killeen over the years and he has turned his life around,” he added.
Judge McCarthy, however, said he was “satisfied the money was the proceeds of the sale of drugs” and the cash was forfeited to the state.
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Friday 24 May 2013
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