Bail successfully opposed for man who allegedly stole €100,000 from Laois house
Portlaoise Courthouse
GARDAÍ successfully opposed bail for a man who is accused of burglary in which €100,000 in cash was allegedly stolen from a house in Co Laois.
Roman Lavu (22), Sean Doire, Durrow was brought before last week’s sitting of Portlaoise District Court charged with burglary and with the theft of €100,000 from a house in Co Laois on 11 November last year.
Judge Andrew Cody instructed that the location of the alleged offence should not be made public.
Det Garda Russell said that he was objecting to bail being granted to the accused.
He said that gardaí carried out an investigation after €100,000 had been taken from the house. He said the occupier, a retired man, had saved the money over a 15-year period and had put it in sweet and biscuit boxes and stored the money upstairs in a wardrobe in his house.
He said that on 11 November last year, a woman across the road from the man’s house witnessed a car pull up outside it and two men slam the boot of it before taking off.
Det Russell said the day before the alleged burglary, the defendant was allegedly observed on CCTV, along with four other people, getting a tyre fixed in the same town as the alleged offence took place.
He said 29 minutes after the alleged burglary, Mr Lavu was observed on nearby CCTV footage and on another CCTV camera about 100 metres from the house in which the alleged burglary took place.
Det Russell also said that earlier on 11 November, CCTV also observed the injured party go to a local supermarket and the car that the defendant had been driving followed him out to another nearby village.
He said a house in Roscrea was searched and the tin lids of USA, Chocolate Kimberley and Cadburys Roses plastic lids were found in the house that allegedly matched the containers the money had been stored in.
He said a bank slip dated from 2022 with the injured party’s name on it was found during the search. He said several mobile phones were seized and footage from them showed the defendant allegedly standing under a Christmas tree with a substantial amount of money on the ground in front of him and other footage of a laundry basket filled with money. He said photos taken just three hours after the alleged burglary show the defendant with a substantial amount of money.
Det Russell said the defendant’s Facebook page was also investigated and it was found that he used a gypsy name on it and a group had been set up with three other individuals. He alleged that there had been substantial communication between the four during the time of the alleged burglary and that GPS tracking of Mr Lavu’s phone put its owner outside the injured party’s house.
He said the defendant is a Slovakian national and since 11 November had travelled to Budapest, Oman, Bratislava, Sweden, Denmark and Germany.
He said the defendant has a wife in Germany and a girlfriend in Sweden.
Det Russell said that if granted bail, he believed the defendant would flee the jurisdiction and he has been moving from country to country over the past few months.
When the bank slip was shown to the defendant, Det Russell said that he said he had no knowledge of it and said that it was his and his friend’s money that was in the photograph taken of him at the Christmas tree.
Regarding the laundry basket that was found in the house in Roscrea, Det Russell said that the injured party said it was his and he missed it after the alleged burglary had taken place in his home. Mr Lavu said that he had no idea where it had come from.
Defending solicitor Josephine Fitzpatrick said gardaí had presented no solid evidence that her client had been involved in any criminal activity whatsoever.
She said the laundry basket found in the house in Roscrea was a generic make and could have come from anywhere and there was nothing to connect it with the injured party’s house.
Det Russell said that it had yet to be forensically tested.
She said that apart from a neighbour seeing two men close the boot of a car outside the injured party’s house, there was no evidence that one of them was her client and that the only evidence of seeing her client in the village at the time was captured on CCTV.
While it was alleged that €100,000 was taken in the alleged burglary, Ms Fitzpatrick asked Det Russell whether any of it was recovered and was there any recovered on her client?
“Some cash has been recovered,” said the garda detective. “How much?’’ asked Ms Fitzpatrick, to which he replied: “€350.” Ms Fitzpatrick asked whether it was unusual for somebody to have their tyre fixed, to which Det Russell said it wasn’t, but it raised suspicions when there were four people in the car at the time. “There’s nothing wrong with it, but when it’s all put together it adds up,” said the detective.
“It’s all speculation. It’s all very vague and based on conjecture. It’s all done to put it together to point the finger at my client Mr Lavu. There was no evidence of connecting him to the injured party’s sweet or biscuit tins and no way of connecting the money that was photographed to the injured party’s house,” said Ms Fitzpatrick.
Sgt Russell said: “I believe in the totality of the case that there will be (connections).” Ms Fitzpatrick said that Sgt Russell’s concerns about her client leaving the jurisdiction could be addressed by her client surrendering his passport, attending a garda station daily to sign on and for an independent surety to be lodged.
Judge Andrew Cody asked how much surety was going to be lodged?
Ms Fitzpatrick was given time to speak with Mr Lavu’s family members who were in court to determine how much they could put up as surety.
When she returned, she said Mr Lavu’s mother could lodge €1,000 surety at this time.
Ms Fitzpatrick said that her client had the presumption of innocence and to the presumption of bail.
Judge Cody agreed with Ms Fitzpatrick that her client comes to court on the presumption of innocence.
However, he said after considering all the evidence put before the court, he was refusing bail and remanded Mr Lavu in custody to the 14 September sitting of the court and for the case to be conducted via video link.
Ms Fitzpatrick made an application for free legal aid on behalf of her client, to which Judge Cody replied: “I’ve seen photographs with tens of thousands of euro. Photographs of him under a Christmas tree with tens of thousands of euro and photos of his getting into a Mercedes.” Ms Fitzpatrick asked him to reserve deciding on her request, to which he agreed. Judge Cody asked that before making his decision on the legal aid application that the defendant should supply the court with the previous six months of his bank accounts up to the court date of 10 September.
