Four-year suspended term for €4,000 threat

A CLARE man has been given a four-year suspended sentence for attempting to extort €4,000 from a man in a hotel car park last year.

Kieran Custy (43), An Tanach, Kilfenora, pleaded guilty at Ennis Circuit Court yesterday to demanding €4,000 in November 2008 from Paschal Hurley, Larchhill, Ennis, in return for having a threat on Mr Hurley’s life lifted.

Det Sgt Joe O’Brien told the court that Custy was aware Mr Hurley had been in dispute with a third party over a plot of land, but had then concocted a story that the third party wanted Mr Hurley killed or paralysed.

On November 7th, 2008, Custy told Mr Hurley he was being paid €10,000 by the third-party to have his movements watched and a further €30,000 was being paid by the same party to an unknown person to have Mr Hurley killed or paralysed. Custy told him that €30,000 was being transferred into an account at 1pm that day for the contract to be carried out.

Mr Hurley told gardaí that Custy told him he was getting cold feet, that he would talk the third party out of it and he would not be shot. In return, Mr Hurley would have to hand over €4,000 to Custy.

Mr Hurley said Custy made these demands in the car park of the Auburn Lodge hotel in Ennis. Earlier, he met Custy near his home, where Custy told him he had good news.

The two then arranged the car park meeting.

Mr Hurley told Custy he needed time to think about the offer. On advice from a friend, Mr Hurley then went to Ennis Garda station.

There he contacted Custy by phone and Custy repeated his demand for the money. The two made arrangements for its handover.

In the afternoon, with gardaí in position video-recording the meeting, Mr Hurley handed over €2,000 to Custy at the car park and said he would have the remaining €2,000 the following Sunday. Custy was then arrested.

Det Sgt O’Brien said Mr Hurley was very traumatised by the episode and did not wish to come to court, but he did not have any interest in Custy being jailed.

Loran Connolly, defending, said Custy’s efforts formed part of an “amateurish escapade”.

He had no previous convictions and had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity.

He had worked all his life before being made redundant six months prior to the incident. He had separated from his wife and two children, Mr Connolly added. At the root of Custy’s problems, he said, was a gambling addiction and resulting indebtedness.

Judge Carroll Moran said it was “a pretty unlawful offence and I can only imagine the trauma suffered by Mr Hurley”.

The judge praised Mr Hurley’s Christian attitude in not wanting Custy jailed.

He said Custy’s having no previous convictions, his long history of employment, his early plea of guilty and Mr Hurley’s Christian attitude compelled him not to impose an immediate prison term and instead impose a four-year suspended jail term.