A WOMAN who was caught three times smuggling cigarettes has brought her baby son to prison with her while she serves a six-month sentence.
Tugsuu Myagmar (30), originally from Mongolia, was driven to Mountjoy Jail by her husband with the permission of Judge Katherine Delahunt because the prison van did not have a baby seat.
Myagmar, of Mountjoy Square, near the city centre, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to attempting to evade excise duty on dates between August 6th, 2005, and April 9th, 2006. She had no previous convictions.
She failed three times to pay the excise duty on 80,980 cigarettes valued at €25,410 she tried to bring into Dublin Airport.
Judge Delahunt had adjourned sentencing to allow Myagmar to arrange childcare and when she finalised sentencing yesterday, she acceded to a defence request to allow Myagmar’s husband to drive her to prison, on condition they arrived there before 4pm.
Judge Delahunt said she accepted that Myagmar had not come to Garda attention before or since this offence, and said she did not underestimate the difficulties she faced trying to make a life for herself in Ireland while trying to support a family in Mongolia.
However, she added, Myagmar had intended to deprive the State of the excise duty it was entitled to and that she got involved in this smuggling operation purely for financial gain.
Judge Delahunt said she was satisfied that a custodial sentence was warranted because Myagmar clearly knew she was involved in criminal activity by the time she was caught on the third occasion.
Niall Jennings, a Customs and Excise officer, told Dominic McGinn, prosecuting, that Myagmar claimed the cigarettes were for her own use and for her family on the first two occasions she was found to have them in her luggage, but when she was stopped again she admitted she had intended to sell them.