A judge told a Limerick man who “callously” thieved over €13,000 belonging to his former employer, after the money was erroneously transferred into his bank account by the firm, that he will avoid a two-year jail sentence if he pays it back in full and does not re-offend.
The defendant, John O’Sullivan, (47), of Byrne Avenue, Prospect, Limerick, said that when he discovered the €13,519.80 lump sum in his bank account, he felt like he had “won the lotto”, Limerick Circuit Criminal Court heard.
When O’Sullivan was contacted about the error by the victim, Richardsons Foods, a well-known and long-standing local business in Limerick that sells fruit and vegetables, he told them it was mostly their own fault, and he would only pay them back €2,000 leftover after he had splurged the rest on gambling and children’s toys.
In a victim impact statement read in court on his behalf, Matthew Richardson, managing director, Richardsons Foods, Eastway Business Park, Ballysimon, Limerick, said when he called to O’Sullivan’s home to ask him to repay the money, O’Sullivan told him he “should sack” the person who made the payment error.
The money had been intended for a supplier of the company but, the court heard, due to an honest “human error”, the total sum of €13,519.80 was sent to O’Sullivan, whose bank account details were still on file at Richardsons after he had stopped working for the company.
“He (O’Sullivan) knew full well that we are a small business and not some faceless multinational. He went on to display a total disregard for the impact of this substantial financial loss to our business and mental impact on former colleagues. We work on very, very low profit margins,” Mr Richardson stated.
O’Sullivan, who works as a cleaner at a hospital, was later arrested and interviewed by gardaí, and he told them he thought the money might have been a tax rebate payment, but he acknowledged, “I thought that was a lot of tax”.
O’Sullivan, who pleaded guilty to the October 2022 theft from Richardsons, admitted to gardaí: “Greed got the better of me. I started to gamble at Paddy Power.”
Asking the court not to impose an immediate custodial sentence, O’Sullivan’s barrister, Amy Nix, said he had no previous convictions and that it was an “unusual and exceptional case”.
Ms Nix said the money lodgement into her client’s bank account had felt like “a bolt of luck” at a “dark time” in O’Sullivan’s life, as his parents had passed away within a few weeks of one another.
“He was in the throws of a gambling addiction. He didn’t keep any of (the money) for himself, he lost most of it,” said Ms Nix.
“He bought presents for the children which shows the gentle nature of the man,” she offered.
“He is ashamed, embarrassed, and remorseful, and he wants to right the wrong. He has not gambled since,” added Ms Nix.
The sentencing judge, Dermot Sheehan, said it was a “classic moral choice when somebody finds a large sum of money on the street – do you hand it to gardaí, so the person gets it back or keep it?”.
Judge Sheehan said it was “extraordinarily callous” of O’Sullivan to tell his former employer that it was effectively their own fault and that he would only pay them back €2,000.
The judge said he had to taking into account O’Sullivan’s guilty plea, and that he had repaid €7,000 of the stolen money.
O’Sullivan said he could repay the outstanding balance of €6,500 in weekly €50 installments, going forward.
Judge Sheehan imposed a two-year suspended sentence and ordered O’Sullivan to repay the outstanding balance of the money over the next four years and not to re-offend during the next two years.
The judge granted an application by the State to apply to the courts for the suspended sentence to be activated in the future if O’Sullivan does not repay the balance of the stolen money in the time frame given.