A 63-year-old man who ran five city-centre brothels has been sentenced to two years in prison and fined €40,000 at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court today.
Former cruise-ship chef Paul Humphreys, a native of Cork city centre but now residing in Cyprus, was estimated to have earned as much as €780,000 a year from the proceeds of the brothels, prosecuting counsel, told Judge Frank O'Donnell.
Judge O'Donnell heard that bank accounts in Cyprus have been frozen and proceedings are underway for the sequestration of Humphreys' other assets.
Humphreys, with an address at Harty Court, Lower Ormond Quay, Dublin 1, pleaded guilty to knowingly allowing premises to be used for the purpose of prostitution between August 31st 2005 and March 26th 2006.
The court heard that when gardaí arrived to arrest Humphreys they found him in his kitchen counting stacks of money - totalling €30,000 - and tallying it against several worksheets.
Further sums were found in various places in the brothels, making a total of €41,646 recovered during the operation. When gardaí raided the premises, as part of the investigation arising out of Operation Quest, they found meticulous records of money taken and the number of clients.
Gardaí gave evidence that the brothels were staffed by anything up to five girls at one time on a shift basis. There were two shifts a day. The girls were mainly from Eastern Europe and charged €150 for a half hour and €250 for a full hour, of which they were allowed to keep half.
In one ten hour shift over two brothels, there were 47 clients who brought in a total of €8,730, the court was told.
A call centre took the bookings from 10 different mobile numbers, advertised on various websites.
Humphreys would tell prospective landlords he was a property developer from Cyprus who needed an Irish base and when the deal was done, the premises would be used solely as a brothel.
Humphreys' defence counsel said he had no involvement with human trafficking and did not employ underage girls or those with a specific vulnerability. The premises were clean and well maintained, the girls were paid in full according to the terms agreed and nobody had a complaint about Humphreys' personal behaviour at any time during the investigation, his lawyers said.
The court was told Humphreys came from a good family and that there was nothing in his past that would lead him towards this kind of activity.
Judge O'Donnell said he disagreed with the maximum fine allowable compared with the amount of money Humphreys would have made. "It is wrong that he should be walking away with a lot of money in his pocket."
He backdated the start of the two year sentence to the date of his arrest and suspended the remaining portion of the sentence pending payment of the €40,000 fine.