Woman found dead after fracas had run brothels

A woman found dead at Ratoath, Co Meath, early yesterday morning has been named as Marie Bridgeman.

Bridgeman (56), a mother of two and resident of Ratoath, was found dead following an altercation outside her home, shortly after midnight yesterday. She had been known to the Garda.

In February 2001, as one of Dublin's best-known and longest-established brothel-keepers, Bridgeman was fined £1,500 and given an 18-month sentence, suspended for three years, at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Then living in Santry, Dublin, she had pleaded guilty to two charges of keeping a brothel at Wexford Street, Dublin. During the case, the court heard she had been making between £500 and £600 a day. She had also opened a second brothel, at Beechmount Avenue, Ranelagh, seven months previously.

She was the first person to be prosecuted at the Circuit Criminal Court by a special Garda unit established two years previously to investigate prostitution in Dublin, .

Gardaí estaimated she had been earning up to £150,000 a year over the previous five years from prostitution. She did not dispute this figure and argued after the court case that prostitution should be regulated and legalised.

In October 2001, Bridgeman received a second suspended jail sentence after admitting she failed to make returns in relation to a tax bill of nearly £200,000.

Following her convictions in February, she had been arrested by the Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB).

She had made a number of statements to gardaí and was assessed as owing £132,000 for the 1995-96 tax year and £62,000 for 1999-2000. CAB had obtained an attachment order for £73,000 against her house in Santry.

She later sold that house to settle the £200,000 bill with CAB. Gardaí in Ashbourne said she had not come to their attention since then.