In August 2023, while the victim was on his Stag in Spain, his fiancée discovered a pipe bomb and four bullets on the front step of their home.
Dundalk Circuit Court has heard how the break-up of a business partnership involving the two co-owners of a Drogheda nightclub, resulted in a pipe bomb and bullets being left on a doorstep and multiple threatening messages by phone including the victim being told he wouldd ‘end up like Kevin Lunney”
Thomas O’Gorman (63), Old Balrath Post Office, Navan, Francis O’Hanlon (61) of Ballyshane, Kilmore West, Dublin and Darren Cole (52), Foxhill Close, Coolock each admitted one charge of demanding money with menaces.
The business relationship the victim had with Tom O’Gorman began in 2014 and due to increasing tensions they agreed to separate in April 2016 and that July they had a physical row in the nightclub’s office, where the pair assaulted each other.
The case ultimately ended up before the commercial list of the High Court.
In August 2023, while the victim was on his Stag in Spain, his fiancée discovered a pipe bomb and four bullets on the front step of their home.
The area was cordoned off and army bomb disposal experts confirmed it was a viable device.
A series of threatening messages were sent, with the injured party believing his former business partner, owed money to individuals in Liverpool and Dubai
They included saying “the boys were back on the streets”. Others said ‘time was running out’, “Let it be known to your family your debts don’t die with you” and “no point in being the richest man in the graveyard”.
In his victim impact statement, the injured party said it had a devastating impact on his family who were advised by gardaí to move around.
They stayed at friends’ houses and lived out of suitcases, checked under cars for bombs and he added it felt “like we were in prison” in their own home with the curtains pulled and lights left on at night.
He said Tom O’Gorman at one point had been his best friend and he had been relieved when he had offered to be a mediator with his blackmailers, not knowing he was one of them and he said that he had gone to extreme lengths in his efforts to get €2.4 million from him.
He also said a fourth man in Belfast, who was behind texts from a Northern phone number is still free.
Judge Dara Hayes adjourned finalising the matter until June 15th and in remanding them in custody said a custodial sentence is inevitable.