A daughter of the jailed drug-dealer, Tony Felloni, has been sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison for stabbing a woman who like her is a heroin addict. Ann Felloni (26), a mother of three, told Judge Raymond Groarke at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court: "I never had a normal girl's childhood. I was just used by my father to distribute heroin."
Her counsel, Mr Jeremy Maher, said Felloni was in the second stage of AIDS and did not have a great life expectancy. When other girls of her age were going to school she was just "a tool in a drugs organisation".
Felloni said she was born into a background of violence and became a heroin addict at 13. She was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1989 and became ill four years ago after contacting hepatitis. She added: "I cannot have teeth extracted because it would be too dangerous due to cancer cells in my jaw."
Felloni, from Lower Dominick Street, Dublin, pleaded guilty to assaulting Ms Martina Talbot, causing her actual bodily harm, on June 26th, 1996.
Garda Vanessa O'Keeffe told the court that Ms Talbot was put into intensive care overnight in hospital and detained for a week before she released herself. She was a drug addict at the time.
Ms Talbot suffered a wound which had left a scar on her chest. She had also suffered two head lacerations.
Garda O'Keeffe said the assault happened because Felloni suspected Ms Talbot of taking her clothes from a flat in Ormond Square. She stabbed Ms Talbot with a steak knife during a fight on Ormond Quay some hours later. Felloni made a statement when arrested and said she was accompanied by Mr Aiden Sallinger, who called for an ambulance on his mobile phone after they brought Ms Talbot to a nearby flat.
She said she was "out of her mind on heroin" at the time and just lost her head. She said she was sorry for stabbing Ms Talbot, with whom she had grown up, and had tried to find her to apologise in person. The court heard Felloni is at present serving a total of four years and three months in three consecutive sentences. Her 27 previous convictions include five assault offences. She was jailed by Clonmel Circuit Court on March 12th last for 2 1/2 years for another knife attack.
Judge Groarke said Felloni had committed a very serious offence and was fortunate not to face a more serious charge. She had used a knife before and the offence merited the full tariff laid down by law.
She had pleaded guilty and apologised. Normally he would not pay much attention to Felloni's personal difficulties but it would be inhuman in this case not to take them into consideration, and he backdated the sentence to March 12th last.