A PROFESSIONAL poker player will find out today if €36,000 seized in a search of a house in Limerick will be forfeited to the State and deed the be the proceeds of crime.
34-year-old Paul Carr won €300,000 in April 2010 when he came second place in the Paddy Power poker classic in Dublin.
12 months later, €36,000 was seized from a house that Gardai had searched on foot of a section 26 drugs warrant.
The Caherdavin home searched was owned by the girlfriend of a friend of Carr’s, Jason Aherne.
Carr claimed the money to be his and from his original windfall from the poker tournament and that he gave it to His friend for safe keeping.
Several District court hearings heard that 34-year-old Carr was a professional poker player and since the win regularly played for cash pots.
He told Gardai and the District court that he would give the money to his friends to keep as he feared he would have been targeted by thieves looking to steal his money.
However, Carr’s application to the lower courts to have the money returned were refused as were subsequent appeals.
Yesterday at Limerick Circuit Court, the State through prosecution counsel John O’Sullivan, said that it was the application of the Gardai to have these monies forfeit as they questioned their provenance. He said that under the act, the Gardai would contend that the money originated from the proceeds of crime or were being used to find criminal activity.
Paul Carr has denied this.
Counsel for Mr Carr, Michael Collins, said that while his client may have “come from a certain part of town” or that he “may have friends in low places” were not grounds enough to question how the poker player came to have the money.
Evidence from Detective Garda David Boland described how Gardai carried out a routine traffic stop of a 2005 Louth registered car in Ballysimon and found over €240,000 in cash in a Dunnes Stores bag in the footwell of the car.
Carr has also claimed ownership of the second amount of money seized and his counsel told Judge Tom O’Donnell that “adding it all up, that’s about the account of my client’s winnings.”
Mr Collins said that his client had “documentary evidence” of withdrawals and lodgments from his bank account showing the regular movement of large amounts of money.
Judge O’Donnell adjourned yesterday’s proceedings to consider legal arguments on behalf of both parties.
