ONE of Limerick’s biggest drug dealers, according to gardai, has been found guilty of the possession of almost €150,000 worth of heroin at the Castlepark Estate, Ballygrennan, on the Limerick Clare border in October 2010. John McCarthy (41) of Cliona Park, Moyross was found guilty by a jury sitting at Limerick Circuit Court this Tuesday after two hours of deliberation. The unanimous verdict was returned by the jury of eight men and four women who heard evidence in the two and a half week trial.
McCarthy was found guilty of the two counts before the court of the possession and the possession with the intent to sell or supply €145,000 worth of heroin at a bagging operation uncovered by gardai in 2010.
An immediate application for a continuation of bail for McCarthy was objected to by the State.
Senior gardai this Tuesday described McCarthy as being one of the “major figure heads in the drug world for the Northside of the city and indeed the wider region and this is seen as a major blow to organised crime in Limerick”.
Prosecution for the State, John O’Sullivan said in objecting to bail that McCarthy’s status had changed and now as a convicted man, it was the belief of senior gardai involved in the drug squad, that McCarthy had access to “financial resources to leave the State”.
He added that it was a “strong probability that Mr McCarthy could leave the jurisdiction”.
Given the value of the drugs seized, Mr O’Sullivan added that the convicted drug dealer had “access to vast amounts of money to support himself outside the State.”
The 41-year-old Moyross man had been linked to organised crime in the past and the conviction secured by the gardai is seen as a major one in combating heroin dealing in the city.
In evidence presented during the trial, McCarthy was identified as being the third of three men seen at the derelict manor house and that when gardai swooped on the area, he shed an item of clothing, fled through undergrowth and dropped a mobile phone that contained his DNA.
The court heard that McCarthy was the “owner of the drugs” and that the other two men arrested at the time of the garda swoop were the “penny boys” and “runners” for McCarthy’s drug dealing enterprise.
“Fat” John McCarthy, as he had been referred to on a number of occasions in court by the prosecution, was remanded in to custody after Judge Carroll Moran heard evidence from Det Garda Alan Cullen of the drug squad that serious concerns were aired as to the possibility that McCarthy could abscond the jurisdiction.
Salutes from McCarthy supporters in the public gallery were heard as McCarthy was led away by prison officers and he is to return to court on Friday June 15 for sentencing.
