DJ Carey sentencing underway over cancer fraud as court hears billionaire Denis O’Brien gave him over €130,000

What was heard this earlier:

Disgraced former hurler DJ Carey admitted to gardai his false claim that he had cancer was a “story he made up” to buy himself some time to repay “substantial” bank debts, a court has heard.
The ex Kilkenny player conned friends and associates including businessman Denis O’Brien into giving him hundreds of thousands of euros for his supposed cancer treatment in Seattle.
Mr O’Brien loaned him more than €125,000 after Carey maintained he was due a payout from a medical action, but there was no such claim and the businessman was never repaid.
Evidence was being given at Carey’s sentence hearing today at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, where he has pleaded guilty to multiple deception charges
Carey, from Co Kilkenny but with an address at The Drive, Newtown, Maynooth, Co Kildare, admitted 10 counts of dishonestly by deception inducing 13 victims to make monetary payment to him after he fraudulently claimed to have cancer and needed finances to obtain treatment.
The offences happened at unknown locations within the state on dates between 2014 and 2022 and the named victims were Owen and Ann Conway, Mark and Sharon Kelly, Denis O’Brien, Aidan Mulligan, Tony Griffin and Christy Browne, Thomas Butler, Jeffrey Howes, Noel Tynan, Aonghus Leydon and Edwin Carey.
Some eight other similar charges and two of using a false instrument are to be taken into consideration.
Detective Sergeant Mick Bourke said the investigation began in 2022 after an alert from a financial institution that said a customer who was “getting on in years” wished to transfer a large sum of money from her account into Carey’s.
This raised “a flag” and after this, another victim contacted gardai to say they believed they had been deceived by Carey and handed money to him on the understanding that he needed treatment for medical issues.
They ascertained later that that may not have been true, the court heard.
Gardai obtained financial records showing a series of deceptions by the accused.
The court heard Mr O’Brien and Carey met on a golfing trip to South Africa in 1997. Later, the accused was living at the Mount Juliet golf resort where Mr O’Brien had bought a property.
Their friendship continued as they played golf together and in 2014, Carey asked Mr O’Brien for financial assistance to travel to Seattle for cancer treatment. He told Mr O’Brien he had won a national handball contest in the US, was classed as an elite athlete and his treatment was paid for but he needed travel expenses.
Mr O’Brien agreed to pay his costs and provided accommodation and a car for Carey while he was in Dublin.
The businessman authorised his accountant to transfer a large amount of money to Carey and also agreed to help him with money he said he owed to AIB.
The accountant asked for doctor’s letters about his medical condition and Carey provided letters purporting to be from a hospital in Seattle “to sustain the fraud.”
In 2017 Mr O’Brien agreed to pay a €60,000 outstanding AIB loan for Carey.
Carey maintained he was due a payout from the HSE. Mr O’Brien gave him a total of €125,182 along with $13,000. None was repaid.
Carey got to know another victim, Aidan Mulligan, through his late wife. Mr Mulligan’s wife had been president of the handball association and Carey had been involved in a fundraiser she had organised following the Omagh bombing in 1998.
She died in 2019 and after he became aware of her death, Carey contacted her husband to offer his condolences. He then said he needed to travel to the US for treatment and was in financial difficulties. Mr Mulligan transferred €8,000 into his account in June and August, 2022. In September, Carey told him he had “€2 in his pocket” and Mr Mulligan gave him another €500. None of the money was repaid.
He showed some victims scars on his head which he said were from cancer treatment. He maintained several times he was expecting payment from a medical claim of more than €1m.
In December 2022, gardai searched Carey’s room at a hotel in Kilkenny and his Hyundai Tucson. The accused opened the hotel room door and gardai said they wanted to speak to him “about irregularities with his finances.”
He invited them in and handed over the keys of his car and his phone, along with the Pin to access it. Gardai downloaded text conversations with the victims where Carey sought financial assistance, referring to multiple myeloma and having to travel to Seattle.
There were “numerous excuses to victims for non re-payment” of the money, often saying he was in Seattle getting treatment, or blaming the banks for payments not going through.
There was also a letter purporting to be from a hospital in Seattle. Gardai made enquiries and while the doctor mentioned was at that hospital, they “didn’t have any record of a patient called Denis or DJ Carey and he had never been treated there.”
Carey went to Waterford garda station by arrangement and said he had been sick with pericarditis in 2017 but had “made up a story that he was sick with cancer” to “buy himself some time” to pay a “substantial debt” for bank loans from AIB.
Immigration enquiries showed he had not travelled to the US since 2015 and gardai were not able to obtain any medical records for him in relation to cancer treatment.
There was also no record of any outstanding claim against the HSE or St James’s Hospital.
The hearing continues before Judge Martin Nolan.

Andrew Phelan