Scammed carer avoids jail for theft

By Claire Henry and Eimear Dodd

A carer who “succumbed to fraudsters” and stole €122,000 from an elderly couple during the Covid-19 pandemic has been handed a suspended prison sentence.

Angela Manning (59) of Kingston Walk, Ballinteer, Dublin 22, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to seven sample charges of stealing money from an elderly couple via ATM withdrawals in Dublin, between April 2019 and September 2021.

She has no previous convictions.

The court previously heard that Ms Laetitia Lynam and her husband Enda O’Regan hired Manning as their carer.

While Ms Lynam was self-isolating during the Covid-19 pandemic, Manning would call to her home and was given an ATM card by Ms Lynam to go food shopping.

Manning withdrew over €122,000 from the couple’s joint account after falling for a Facebook scam.

Imposing sentence yesterday, Judge Pauline Codd said it was “cold comfort” to the injured parties that Manning didn’t use the money “to enrich herself and buy lavish things, but succumbed to fraudsters”.

She said Manning had breached the “high degree of trust” given to her in her role as a carer.

Judge Codd noted that Manning’s actions removed the couple’s “financial comfort blanket to benefit professional fraudsters”.

The judge said the aggravating features included the amount of money involved, “the persistent acts of dishonesty” over an 18-month period during the Covid-19 pandemic and the fact that the offending “only stopped when the money ran out”.

Judge Codd said Manning had believed “stories from fraudsters” and “naively believed she would recover the money when she had unwittingly taken steps which meant no one could trace the money”.

She noted Manning “did not personally benefit from taking the money” and had “wrecked her own financial security and that of injured parties”.

She added that the defendant had “enriched blatant scammers on foot of their sob stories”, but not benefitted herself financially.

Judge Codd handed Manning a three-year sentence suspended for four years, taking into account mitigating factors including her early guilty plea, difficulties with alcohol, emotional vulnerabilities and lack of previous convictions.

She accepted that Manning is unlikely to re-offend and the court considered that she could “better make recompense” to the injured parties through her continued employment.

Judge Codd said Manning had also experienced public humiliation associated with these offences and had a “very substantial fall from grace as a person of previous good character”.

Manning was ordered to continue with therapy for two years and to make efforts to secure a lump sum to repay the injured parties.

At an earlier sentence hearing, Detective Garda Gavin Higgins told Aideen Collard BL, prosecuting, that Ms Lynam and Mr O’Regan are a married couple, and Manning was initially hired as a carer via an agency but was later hired privately by the couple.

Det Gda Higgins said Mr O’Regan, who is in his eighties, resides in a nursing home and suffers from dementia.

His wife Ms Lynam self-isolated during the Covid-19 pandemic due to an underlying health condition.

Manning would call to her home daily and was given an ATM card and pin by Ms Lynam so she could go food shopping.

The court heard that in September 2021, Ms Lynam texted Manning asking for her ATM card back as she had tried to buy something online, but the payment would not go through.

The following day Manning came to Ms Lynam’s home and said, “I want to tell you something, I have done something on you. You are going to be very angry with me, I have taken all your money.”

The court heard that Ms Lynam initially laughed and thought it was a joke, but Manning said, “I have bled you dry; there is nothing left.”

Ms Lynam asked, “Have you taken all my money?” to which Manning replied, “Yes, there is only €7 left.”

Manning had withdrawn over €122,000 from the couple’s joint account.

Manning told Ms Lynam that she had met a man on Facebook and was falling in love with him.

This man said his name was “Sam” and that he was a soldier in the United States Army.

Sam told Manning his daughter was dying, and he needed €10,000 to be released from the army.

Manning asked Ms Lynam not to tell gardaí as she needed time to tell her husband what she had done.

Ms Lynam contacted gardaí that afternoon and an investigation began.

Gardaí obtained CCTV footage of Manning withdrawing cash from an ATM. During questioning, Manning told gardaí that she would withdraw cash and go to a shop on Talbot Street, where she would lodge cash using an ATM into an untraceable Bitcoin online wallet.

The court heard for a period of time that Manning stopped lodging money into the Bitcoin account after her brother found out and told her it was a “scam”.

While giving her account to gardaí, Manning said she had been contacted by other personas who said they were a General and Commandant in the US Army, as well as someone from the United Nations.

She was also informed that Garda Commissioner Drew Harris was minding the money for her, all of which was completely untrue.

Det Gda Higgins told the court that High Court proceedings had taken place in 2021 and the deeds of the Manning family home were now in the possession of Ms Lynam and Mr O’Regan.

Det Gda Higgins agreed with Michael Bowman SC, defending, that his client had fallen for a Facebook scam “hook, line and sinker”.

He said she had accepted an unsolicited friend request on Facebook.

Mr Bowman said that over the course of the scam, his client had received communications from a number of people pretending to be in the US Army.

His client said they had “put the guilt trip” on her.

Counsel said Manning had received an email from “Sam” stating that money had been held in trust for him and that once he had left the army, that money would be released.

The court heard Manning was of the belief that the money she had transferred was a loan and would be paid back to her.

Manning believed that the money was being sent via an An-Post parcel, but it had been stopped by customs in Ireland, and an additional payment was needed to have this parcel released.

Mr Bowman told the court that Manning had also used money which her husband received when he retired and that he has since had to come out of retirement and go back to work.

Counsel handed documents to the court in the form of a handwritten letter from Manning and two medical reports.

One of the reports outlined that Manning was an easy target for manipulation.

Mr Bowman asked the court to take into account that the prospect of Manning ever coming before the court in the future was “near zero”.

He said it was an “extraordinary set of circumstances and that his client had compromised the security of the injured parties and had also done the exact same thing to her husband and family.”