A 40-year-old bookkeeper who admittted stealing €98,000 from a Cork city jeweller has been jailed for a year today after a judge heard he had no prospect of repaying the money.
Anthony O'Meara from Baker's Road in Gurranebraher in Cork had pleaded guilty to 36 sample charges of theft from his employers, Michel Jewellers on Patrick Street in Cork.
Det Garda Darragh Murray told Cork Circuit Criminal Court that the offences involved some 176 thefts of money between January 6th 2012 and July 9th 2013.
Det Garda Murray said that the owner of Michel's Jewellers, Tim Keane noticed discrepancies between his daily cash sales and daily lodgements and alerted gardaí.
Gardaí interviewed O’Meara who was the bookkeeper at the firm and he admitted stealing sums varying from €20 to €3,500 with the average theft being several hundred euros.
He revealed that he had taken the money by a number of methods including failing to lodge daily takings and also making electronic transfers from the firm’s account to his own account.
Det Garda Murray said that O’Meara was stealing the money to feed a serious and growing gambling addiction he developed as well as a lesser drink problem.
“Most of his gambling addiction was to online gambling - using his own smartphone to place bets at all times of the day,” said Det Garda Murray.
Det Garda Murray said it was a sad case as O’Meara was caring for his five young children all under the age of nine as his wife was suffering from severe post-natal depression.
He said that O’Meara, who had no previous convictions, had been full and frank in his admissions with gardaí and could not have assisted them more in their investigation.
Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin asked defence barrister, Sinead Behan BL if O’Meara had any compensation to offer his former employer who was €98,000 out of pocket.
Ms Behan said that O’Meara had brought a cheque to court for €3,250 but he had no realistic prospect of paying back more as he was finding it difficult to obtain work.
Judge Ó Donnabháin said that in the absence of being able to pay compensation to the victim, he was left with little alternative but to impose a custodial sentence on O’Meara.
He acknowledged that it was a sad case and he recognised that O’Meara had co-operated fully with gardaí and had saved the state the cost of a potential complex trial by his guilty plea.
He accepted that O’Meara had a significant gambling addiction and that he had shown a significant level of remorse which was to his credit but he was guilty of a breach of trust.
“I cannot lose sight of the fact that this man was employed as a bookkeeper - he had the trust of his employer and he devised a system to steal from his employers,” he said.
He sentenced O’Meara to three years in jail but suspended the final two years on condition he abide by the Probation Service’s direction regarding addiction counselling upon his release.
