Solicitor avoids prison over fraudulent mortgage

Declan McEvoy (50) used loan from AIB to clear the debts of his father’s law firm

A solicitor who took out a fraudulent mortgage after his father's law firm got into trouble with the Law Society has avoided a prison sentence.

Declan McEvoy (50), who now has an address in Melbourne, Australia, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to dishonestly obtaining a mortgage with AIB for €297,000 on dates between May 5th, 2009 and July 20th,2009.

Mr McEvoy was principal at the criminal law firm William Early Solicitors, in Carlow town, when his father’s firm, JM McEvoy, in Gorey, Co Wexford, was being investigated by the Law Society.

William Early left the practice in 1993 and had no involvement with the firm since that date.

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The organisation allowed Mr McEvoy snr to retire from the firm on the condition that his son took it over.

Declan McEvoy subsequently used €297,000 he fraudulently obtained from AIB to clear the debts of his father’s firm.

His defence counsel told Judge Melanie Greally that "a series of skeletons started coming out of the cupboard" of the Gorey practice and McEvoy obtained a mortgage fraudulently "to mop it up and maintain both firms.

“He made a very serious error in judgment and he tried to solve problems that in many respects had not been his creation,” defence counsel Felix McEnroy SC said.

Castleknock property

Det Sgt Martin Griffin told Ronan Kennedy BL, prosecuting, that when McEvoy accepted the offer from AIB it was on the condition that he was the registered owner of the property in Castleknock, Dublin, for which he was taking out the mortgage.

It later transpired that his sister was the owner of the house and that a buyer had put down a deposit on the property in August 2009, a month after McEvoy drew down his mortgage for the house.

Judge Greally said she did not believe McEvoy would re-offend, before imposing an 18-month suspended sentence.