‘deceitful’ | 

Wexford auctioneer jailed after pleading guilty to stealing over €200,000

Now separated from her children and deep in debt, Sinead O’Leary attracted a measure of sympathy from the judge

© Wexford People

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The scale of her thieving from clients made jail inevitable for auctioneer Sinead O’Leary when she appeared in Wexford Circuit Court.

The 45-year-old from Cornwall, Killurin, stood in the dock while charge after charge was put to her – 52 counts of theft in all. In each instance her response to the court registrar was ‘guilty’.

After taking into account four further offences already admitted, Judge James McCourt totted up the total amount stolen. The figure came to more than €200,000, siphoned off in sums ranging from €150 to €3,000 over a period of almost ten years.

The court heard from investigating Detective Garda Trevor Buckley that the stolen money did not fund any extravagant lifestyle. Now separated from her children and deep in debt, the accused attracted a measure of sympathy from the judge.

But he felt he had no alternative but to send her to prison, handing down a three and a half year sentence. He suspended the closing two years with the condition that she must continue to address her alcoholism once released.

Three books of evidence were assembled by investigators as two companies and one individual were affected by Ms O’Leary’s crimes.

Engineer Pat Wheelock from Moneyhore in Clonroche was defrauded of €89,000 while Faythe Management suffered to the tune of €77,500 and Windmill Heights Management took a €39,000 hit. Present in court to support the offender during the sentencing hearing were her brother Andrew and two loyal female friends who have shown support throughout her troubles.

They listened as the court was told that Pat Wheelock had retained the defendant’s father Michael O’Leary accountant and auctioneer to look after his finances in or around 1978. This arrangement was conducted through a company called MOL Limited, a name derived from the initials of Michael O’Leary.

Sinead O’Leary carried out the work for MOL in the period 2011 to 2013. Wheelock later complained that during this time she transferred money from his Ulster Bank account. When challenged, she said at first that the transfers were authorised to allow her pay bills but this did not add up.

The detective confirmed that none of the €89,000 taken was ever paid back. He was not in a position to say how the illicitly gained money was spent.

Next to suffer was the Faythe Management Company which ran the Maltings apartment complex in Wexford Town. The firm took on Michael O’Leary and his daughter to manage the place, with the latter having full control of the relevant AIB Bank account.

The finances began to go astray in 2014, though irregularities were not detected until 2020. More than a hundred transfers went from the AIB account to Ms O’Leary’s own Bank of Ireland account. They were marked ‘for services’ but no service was received in return by Faythe Management over the seven years that the thefts continued.

A similar modus operandi was employed in the case of the Windmill Heights Management Company, another Wexford property firm where 54 dodgy transactions showed up when the books for 2016 and 2017 were examined. As a result of her activities, the defendant lost her right to practise as an auctioneer.

She was arrested in 2021 and she admitted that ‘misappropriations’ had found their way into a joint bank account she shared with her husband Tom Bolger. The prosecution accepted that Mr Bolger played no part in the criminal activity.

He left her after he became aware of what had been going and the couple’s two teenaged offspring were not at the moment in contact with their mother.

Her plight was worsened by the fact that she developed a dependency on alcohol.

Defending barrister Michell Smith de Bruin assured the court that this problem was being addressed Her client brought in the new year attending residential rehab at Tabor Lodge in Cork and was now on the books of Ais Éirí. If she had not been obliged to attend the hearing, she would have been at an AA meeting.

She was required to pay not only legal bills but also a fine imposed by the auctioneers’ professional body.

“A lot of pressure has been on this woman for a long time,” Ms Smith de Bruin suggested. “She only recently admitted has a problem with alcohol.”

Judge McCourt branded Ms O’Leary’s actions “deceitful dishonest and criminal”, carried out in breach of trust.

With no previous convictions against her name, she came from a good family and was at low risk of re-offending. The court accepted that she had shown remorse and commended her for taking up residential rehab.

Two years of the three and a half year sentence were suspended with the condition that she must stay sober and continue with Ais Éirí.

“These are particularly difficult cases,” observed the judge.