A 60-YEAR-OLD financial adviser was yesterday remanded in custody for sentence after he was convicted on 10 counts of money laundering more than £3 million.
The cash was stolen in the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast more than four years ago.
Ted Cunningham, Woodbine Lodge, Farran, Co Cork, was remanded by Judge Con Murphy for sentence on April 24th after he was found guilty of all counts by majority verdicts at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.
His son, Timothy, who pleaded guilty to possessing £3,010,389 knowing it to be the proceeds of the Northern Bank raid, is to be sentenced on the same date. The guilty plea, entered during the trial of the two men, could not be reported until yesterday.
The jury had spent three hours on Thursday evening considering the evidence against Ted Cunningham and it resumed its deliberations yesterday at 10.40am.
At 12.10pm it sent a note to Judge Murphy informing him it could not agree a unanimous verdict on any of the charges.
Following discussions with the prosecution and defence, Judge Murphy summoned the jury and informed it that the court was in a position to accept a majority verdict in respect of each of the charges.
The jury then retired and returned just 10 minutes later to inform the court it had found Cunningham guilty of nine of the charges by a margin of 11-1 and guilty of one charge by a margin of 10-2.
The jury convicted Cunningham by 11-1 of the principal charge of possessing £3,010,380 at Farran, Co Cork, between December 20th, 2004, and February 16th, 2005, knowing or believing it to be the proceeds of robbery at the Northern Bank Cash Centre in Belfast.
By the same margin it convicted Cunningham on eight of the subsidiary charges relating to his dispersal of the money through either transferring various amounts of stolen cash to others or lodging it with financial institutions.
It found Cunningham guilty by a 10-2 margin of laundering the proceeds of the robbery by transferring a Mitsubishi Pajero jeep worth €10,000 to former Passage West Sinn Féin councillor Tom Hanlon.
In all, the jury members spent four hours and 40 minutes considering the evidence of some 77 witnesses spread over 45 days and Judge Murphy thanked them for their care and attention to the case as he excused them from jury service for life.
Cunningham, who had said, “It’s all in the lap of the gods now” as the jury began its deliberations on Thursday, had maintained an affably relaxed appearance throughout the hearing and showed no emotion as the verdicts were read out.
His counsel, Ciarán O’Loughlin SC, applied to have sentencing adjourned for a month and Judge Murphy said he was willing to grant the application but given the seriousness of the charges, he said he would remand Cunningham in custody.
Cunningham had gone on trial on January 14th last, denying the charges.
Timothy Cunningham, Church View, Farran, went on trial on the same date, charged with possessing £3,010,389 at Farran knowing it to be the proceeds of the Northern Bank raid.
He pleaded guilty two weeks into the trial and he was remanded on bail for sentence until April 24th. Judge Murphy made an order preventing reporting of the guilty plea while the trial of his father was continuing.
Following his conviction, Cunningham snr spoke briefly to his wife, Catherine Armstrong, and embraced her before being led away by two prison officers for transfer to Cork Prison to await sentence for the crime which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years.