A CONVICTED drug dealer has been given a 10-year sentence by Judge Frank O’Donnell after gardaí spotted him digging up heroin worth €178,000 three months after he was released from a previous drug sentence.
Brendan Reilly (44), Langrishe Place, Dublin, pleaded guilty before a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury to being in possession of the drugs on the Clontarf Road on June 16th, 2007. Insp Stephen Courage told Paul Carroll, prosecuting, that Reilly was jailed for 10 years in 2002 after he admitted to having heroin valued at £30,000 in his home in Summerhill, in December 2001.
Reilly’s sentence was up for review after five years in March 2007 and he was released from prison about three months before he committed this crime. He is currently serving the remaining five years of that sentence which was reactivated after he was charged with this offence. Reilly’s 71 previous convictions included other drug dealing and road traffic offences.
Insp Courage said Reilly had been under surveillance when gardaí saw him with the drugs. He made admissions at the scene and said that he was there “to collect the stuff because I owe 10 grand to someone”. He said that he was due to meet someone at 1pm and if he didn’t show up they would know he had been arrested. “I’ll get a bullet for it. I can’t have any of my kids shot,” Reilly told arresting gardaí.
Insp Courage agreed with Paul McDermot SC, defending, that his client’s convictions dated back to when he was 16 years old and he first developed a heroin addiction.
Judge O’Donnell imposed a 10- year sentence to run consecutively with his present jail term.