A garage owner who was caught with £15,000 worth of cocaine has been jailed for 4 1/2 years by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
James Butler gave gardai a fictitious name for a man he claimed asked him to hold the cocaine for him but this man didn't exist, a senior garda told Judge Cyril Kelly.
Butler (39), married with four children, of Greenville Avenue, South Circular Road, Dublin, and Limekiln, Dublin, pleaded guilty to having cocaine for sale or supply on April 19th, 1996. He had no previous convictions.
Det Supt Austin McNally told Mr Patrick Marrinan, prosecuting, that 189 grams of cocaine, a weighing scales and £4,750 cash were recovered by gardai who stopped and searched Butler as a result of confidential information. Butler claimed he was offered £300 by a man who called to his tyre garage at Harold's Cross to divide up the cocaine. "I would be very sceptical about his story," Det Supt McNally said. The cash had traces of cocaine, and gardai believed it was the proceeds of drug dealing.