Heroin dealer with `expensive lifestyle' jailed for 13 years

A heroin dealer with an "expensive lifestyle", including holidays to Barbados and international soccer matches, was jailed for…

A heroin dealer with an "expensive lifestyle", including holidays to Barbados and international soccer matches, was jailed for 13 years in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday.

Michael "Rolly" Cronin (24), a father of one, pleaded guilty to possessing heroin with an estimated value of between £10,000 and £16,000 at his Buckingham Street, Dublin, flat on September 28th, 1996.

Judge Cyril Kelly noted that Cronin, who was not a heroin user, had been given a chance by the court four months earlier. In May 1996 he received a three-year suspended sentence for simple possession of heroin. "He has spurned that chance. In effect he said `no thank you very much'," the judge said. He ordered that Cronin serve a 10-year sentence on top of the three-year sentence which had been suspended in 1996. Much of yesterday's hearing was taken up with debates between gardai and defence counsel, Mr Barry White SC, about the exact value of the drugs and Cronin's lifestyle. Judge Kelly said Cronin had told his probation officer that he earned £250 a week by doing legitimate work for his brothers. But earlier when asked by Mr White about the defendant's alleged employment, Garda Sean McLoughlin said: "There is a bit of a mystery attached to that subject." He had used various job descriptions on documents seen by gardai.

He said Cronin enjoyed an expensive lifestyle, with holidays to Barbados and to international football matches. His £100,000 house in Finglas was lavishly furnished and he drove a £13,000 car. Out of his alleged legal earnings he had to spend £781 a month on mortgage repayments for his house and payments for his car. This left him with £219 a month for food and living expenses for himself, his girlfriend and their two-year-old child.

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Garda McLoughlin said Cronin had handed in his passport at a previous court hearing. Later, another passport bearing his name was found during a search of his home along with an airline ticket.

The garda denied he was deliberately trying to exaggerate the defendant's financial position. He said a number of gardai took part in a raid on the defendant's flat at Buckingham Street on September 28th, 1996.

Cronin tried to block their entry at the door and shouted at his girlfriend to "get rid of it, get rid of it". She threw a pair of shoes and clothes into a basket and went into the garden. Gardai forced their way into the flat and found the heroin in a shoe in the garden.

After yesterday's sentencing, the Independent TD Mr Tony Gregory said the case was a great success for the drugs unit based in Store Street, and for ICON (the Inner City Organisations Network) which had marched on Cronin's home.

Mr Gregory said: "I am delighted. I think it is great for the drugs unit in Store Street who have been after him for a number of years. It's also great for ICON." Mr Gregory said Cronin had outraged locals who had seen their young people die of AIDS due to drug addiction while he bought houses in the inner city area with drugs money.