A judge told a Limerick man who “callously” stole 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 said.
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”.
Judge Dermot Sheehan imposed a two-year suspended sentence and ordered O’Sullivan to repay the outstanding balance of the money – he had repaid €7,000 – 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.