Former Kilkenny hurler DJ Carey has been jailed for five-and-a-half years for defrauding up to 22 people by falsely claiming he had cancer and needed money for treatment.
Carey (54) was remanded in custody last Friday, October 31 after Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard he defrauded 22 people out of a total of almost €400,000. Just over €44,000 has been repaid.
Judge Martin Nolan told the court he could not imagine a more reprehensible fraud. He said Carey had exploited people’s good nature.
Carey pleaded guilty in July last to 10 counts of dishonestly inducing people to pay him money for cancer treatment.
Eight similar offences were taken into consideration by the court along with two counts of using a fake letter purporting to be from a hospital in Seattle, Washington, US to perpetrate his fraud.
Judge Nolan said that almost all defrauding cases appeal to the weaknesses of human beings, and that weakness is usually greed.
“This is not the case here, Mr Carey exploited the good nature of people,” he told the court when sentencing him on Monday, November 3.
He said it was “very hard to know what motivated Mr Carey” but since his guilty pleas he had been subjected to “public odium and ridicule” and that his “good name will probably never recover”.
