A STAGEHAND has been given a suspended sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for collecting takings from prostitutes working in a city centre brothel two years ago.
David Cowley, whose stagehand work included the film Animal Farm, made for US television, pleaded guilty to acting or assisting in the management of a brothel on December 9th, 2005.
Cowley (43), with an address at Loughlinstown Shopping Centre, Co Dublin, also admitted possession of ammunition on December 10th, 2005.
Judge Patricia Ryan imposed concurrent sentences totalling three years, which she suspended in full.
Garda Ivan Houlihan told prosecuting counsel Mary Rose Gearty that gardaí had mounted a surveillance operation on brothels in apartments in the Bachelors Walk area of Dublin and 17 men observed coming out of the apartments were interviewed.
The men described two apartments with a total of eight prostitutes working. They paid €210 per hour.
A search warrant was obtained for the premises and business records, a list of names and white envelopes were discovered.
One of the five girls present at the time had kept a list of customer names and how much they had paid.
Garda Houlihan said that as part of the surveillance they followed a Mongolian woman from the premises over the Ha'penny Bridge where she met with Cowley who kissed her on the cheek and took a package from her.
Cowley was arrested and found to have seven white envelopes on him, each of which had a woman's name and an amount on it. The number written on the envelope corresponded to the amount of cash in the envelope, and €1,660 in total was seized.
Cowley told gardaí he had been collecting the money for a man he had "met at the gym" and was not involved in the running of the brothel.
He said he was paid €60 for each collection and that he had got the phone number of "the agency" running the brothel from the internet.
Garda Houlihan said a search of Cowley's home the next day turned up a number of torn white envelopes with girls' names on them.
Gardaí also found a sock in his kitchen containing 10 rounds of live ammunition.
Cowley told gardaí he had found the ammunition in a damp sock in his garden.
The woman who handed over the money to Cowley told gardaí that she had received a text message from "the agency" telling her that "Dave was on his way" and asking her to sort out the takings.
She said she had given the takings to Cowley three or four times before and he had asked after the girls working in the apartments and if they were busy.
She said the takings were collected every day.
Garda Houlihan said Cowley had 10 previous convictions for assault, burglary and larceny, the most recent of which dated back to 1990. All the offences were dealt with in the District Court.
Garda Houlihan agreed with defence counsel Denis Vaughan Buckley SC that Cowley's only role had been to collect cash for a few weeks.
Garda Houlihan described Cowley's role as "minor but important".
Michael Walsh, a film and television producer, told Mr Vaughan Buckley that he had employed Cowley as a stagehand on several occasions including for a film called Animal Farm made for American television.
He described Cowley as an "excellent employee" and "part of my A-team".
Mr Vaughan Buckley handed in a large number of testimonials from employers and boxing clubs. He said Cowley had not come to Garda attention since this offence.