A court was told yesterday that a woman arrested for suspected money-laundering told gardai: "I know this money is not right, but I know it is not drugs money."
Ms Maria Bernadetta Jehle said in a statement that she was 100 per cent sure that money she received from Switzerland was not drugs money but she knew she should not have taken it. She needed it to set up a riding stables near her home in Cobh, Co Cork.
Ms Jehle (47) and a co-defendant, Mr Gunther Hollman, both with an address at The Priory, Ballymore, Cobh, each deny two charges of handling money in 1996/97 knowing it was the proceeds of other people's criminal activity.
The case, now in its fifth week and the first of its kind before the Irish courts, is being heard at Cork Circuit Criminal Court before Judge Patrick Moran and a jury. Much of it has been taken up by legal argument in the jury's absence.
Yesterday Det Supt Martin Callinan said he and other gardai arrested the defendants in Midleton on May 16th last year, and over the next two days he took a statement from Ms Jehle.
In the statement she said that £80,000 which gardai found on her was money her son, Peter (27), got from Mr Uwe Palisch, who she knew was being investigated by the Swiss police for fraud. She said she met Mr Palisch in Switzerland and he told her he had to move money because he was involved in something that was not right. He would not tell her what it was.
"He asked me could I put deutschmarks in my account in Ireland and I agreed and he sent 500,000DM. He wanted to hide the money. I was to get half of it."
Ms Jehle said she came to Ireland on holiday in 1989. She travelled a great deal in Switzerland, Germany and France, eventually settling in Ireland. During her time in Ireland she bought and sold property for an auctioneer, Mr John Simpson, receiving one-third of the profits. "I sold Belair Castle in Co Cork for £650,000. I sold 15 or 20 properties for John Simpson."
Ms Jehle said she bought The Priory from Mr Simpson. Mr Hollman had been living in the lodge there for about two years, helping her in the garden and doing other work.
The house was registered to an offshore company called Gidlow. The company meant nothing; it was just her house. Her solicitor, Mr Fergus Appleby, helped her fix the deal. Her mother, Ms Maria Humbell, has a property in Annagh, near Mallow. Cross-examined by Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC, for Ms Jehle, Det Supt Callinan said that during the interview and statement he had no doubt she understood him perfectly and understood what was happening.
The cross-examination continues today.