A POLISH national considered \u2018quite central\u2019 in a drug enterprise and found with \u20ac80,168 worth of cannabis and \u20ac51,610 in cash at his home was sentenced to three years in jail by Judge Eugene O\u2019Kelly at a sitting of Carlow Circuit Court.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed executed a search warrant at 5A Bestfield, Athy Road, Carlow, the home address of Fabian Sendyk (48), on 14 December 2024, after receiving intelligence that Mr Sendyk was involved in the sale and supply of drugs.<\/p>\n
When they approached the house, the defendant was standing outside and wasn\u2019t expecting the garda\u00ed. His wife and four children were inside. However, when asked if he had anything illegal in the house, he was forthright about the fact that there were drugs inside.<\/p>\n
Garda Mick Morris accepted that Mr Sendyk had been very co-operative and made full admissions. He directed garda\u00ed to the place where he was storing the drugs, in the bathroom of the property.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed also found a compartment in a speaker inside the boot of his car and the defendant admitted it was used to conceal drugs, later saying he constructed it himself. He showed garda\u00ed the fob on his key ring used to open the compartment.<\/p>\n
Mr Sendyk argued that the cash found was savings. However, Brian O\u2019Shea BL, for the prosecution, noted that Revenue records showed Mr Sendyk earning an annual salary of \u20ac35,000 and that it was unlikely that all of this cash was earned from legitimate employment. Garda Morris said he was in no doubt that the money seized was the proceeds of criminal activity.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed also executed a search warrant at his workplace, but did not find anything.<\/p>\n
Mr Sendyk told the probation officer that he was under financial pressure and got involved in the sale of drugs to supplement his income. He said he was approached four months prior to his arrest and asked if he wanted to earn extra money. He started out doing deliveries of packages and quickly guessed what was involved.<\/p>\n
Aidan Doyle BL, for the defence, noted that Mr Sendyk and his family were renting a home for approximately \u20ac700 a month, but were served with an eviction notice in 2023 and moved in October 2024 to a property costing \u20ac1,600 a month.<\/p>\n
Mr Doyle noted that his client had been in Ireland since 2007 and, as far as his employer was concerned, Mr Sendyk was \u201ca model employee\u201d.<\/p>\n
Garda Morris accepted that the defendant was described as hardworking, diligent and reliable. During the garda interview, he spoke of being in fear of the people above him in the operation. However, he said Mr Sendyk was considered to be \u201cquite central and trusted\u201d in the criminal enterprise and that it would not have operated without him.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the testimonials from his employer were \u201cglowing, they could not be more praiseworthy in terms of his effort and contribution to the organisation,\u201d said Mr Doyle. Similarly, the probation officer said Mr Sendyk showed insight into and remorse for his offending and was deemed at low risk of reoffending.<\/p>\n
He said Mr Sendyk had come to Ireland in 2007 and previously in Poland had qualified as a mechanic, worked in the Polish navy and as a lorry driver for ten years.<\/p>\n
Mr Doyle asked the court to consider departing from the statutory minimum of ten years in prison for this offence, particularly considering the drugs were cannabis, which is legal in some jurisdictions, and not something more serious.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe drugs are not the hardest type of drugs, but drug dealing at this level I don\u2019t imagine to be legal anywhere,\u201d noted Judge O\u2019Kelly.<\/p>\n
He set a headline sentence of six years in prison, less than the mandatory minimum due to the exceptional circumstances outlined by Mr Doyle.<\/p>\n
Because of the guilty plea and engagement with the probation office, he reduced this to four years and six months and suspended the final 18 months of that sentence, on the condition that Mr Sendyk remain under probational supervision for one year post-release.<\/p>\n
\n Funded by the Court Reporting Scheme\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A POLISH national considered \u2018quite central\u2019 in a drug enterprise and found with \u20ac80,168 worth of cannabis and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-478702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}