Lawyer caught with cocaine on prison visit gets strike-out

A SOLICITOR caught with cocaine in his wallet during a professional visit to Mountjoy Prison has avoided a conviction after he donated €1,250 to a drug addiction treatment unit.

Dublin-based Aonghus McCarthy had insisted someone else must have put the drugs in his wallet at a party, before he was caught with the cocaine, worth €26, on February 8 last year. McCarthy, 32, had been told last month he would be spared a criminal conviction for the offence if he gave the money to the Merchant Quay drug project.

Judge Gerry Jones had said at Dublin District Court that McCarthy was in a ‘noble profession’ but was being treated the same as any other defendant, adding: ‘He will get one chance and one chance only.’

Cocaine weighing 0.33g was found in McCarthy’s wallet when he was searched at the prison, which he was visiting on a professional basis, the court previously heard.

The case resumed yesterday when Judge Gráinne O’Neill, now presiding, noted from defence solicitor Miska Hanahoe that there was a receipt to confirm McCarthy had made the donation. She affirmed the order made by her colleague and struck out the case.

The solicitor, of Wellington House, Clancy Quay, Dublin 8, had been excused from attending the hearing but was at the courthouse to represent his clients in other cases.

He had originally been charged in November under the Misuse of Drugs Act for conveying a controlled drug into Mountjoy Prison or to a person in the prison, on February 8, 2017 – a charge he denied. In January an additional but less serious charge for unlawful possession of the drug was brought in the case.

On February 5, when the case resumed, Judge Gerry Jones noted the State was not proceeding with the more serious allegation of conveying the drug into the jail, which can carry a possible 12-month sentence. A guilty plea was then entered to the less serious charge of possession.

The case previously heard that the lawyer was interviewed by Garda Finbarr Brennan and denied owning the drug. During the interview, he said: ‘I absolutely 100% did not put it in my wallet.’ He also told the investigating garda: ‘Someone else must have put it in there’, and that it may have happened at a party.