Couple blackmail priest- Irish justice at its best

Delboy05

what a great little country Ireland has become. Equality has reached a new high....couple get convicted of blackmailing a priest. The husband gets 4 years, 2 suspended. Wife gets all 4 suspended, simply because she has kids.The equality tribunal can be proud of that result.

He's a romanian, former asylum seeker. Will he get deported when he's released? you bet he won't.

And the Gardai-the priest gives them the tape after he hands over 15k. They sit on it and do nothing despite the couple (who forgot to turn off the camera after leaving the priests house) discussing the whole scam in their car in detail. They only arrest them 6 months later when the woman comes looking for more cash.

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/ireland/2007/0721/1184826296215.html
http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0720/priest.html

mikemac

Tbh, the fact that they are Romanian has nothing to do with it.

Sure if the priest did nothing wrong, he had no reason to pay over anything. Why didn't he play back the tape before handing over the cash? Seems foolish to me.

I doubt he had anthing to worry about. I'd believe a priest over most ordinary people but maybe I'm alone in that.

A Romanian man has been sentenced to four years in prison for blackmailing a priest and extorting €15,000 from him, while his wife has received a suspended sentence.

Petre Zsiga and his Irish wife Margaret, who live at Knocknacarra, in Galway, both pleaded guilty at Galway Circuit Court to blackmailing Fr Brendan Lawless, the parish priest of Portumna, in 2005.

The court was told by Sgt Dathai Cronin that Margaret Zsiga had gone to Fr Lawless house with a bottle of wine and a flag and followed him from his living room to a bedroom.

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The Sergeant said she was carrying a camera concealed in a bag and attempted to video him but it only recorded sound and not pictures.

He said she had offered Fr Lawless sexual relations but he had made it clear to her that he did not want to have a sexual affair with her.

A few days later however Margaret Zsiga told Fr Lawless that she had an incriminating video of the priest and would go to the press unless he paid her €14,500.

Fr Lawless paid over the money, but denied to gardaí that he had a sexual affair with her.

He then handed the tape over to the gardaí thinking that Mrs Zsiga had left the country. However she returned six months later a demanded a further €10,000.

This was not paid over and the gardaí arrested Mr and Mrs Zsiga shortly afterwards.

Judge Raymond Groarke said they were guilty of a very heinous crime in setting up Fr Lawless.

He added that Fr Lawless was very brave to come forward because of the insinuations that might be drawn despite his insistence that he had refused point blank to become involved with Mrs Zsiga.

Petre Zsiga was given a four-year sentence the last two years to be suspended. His wife was given a four-year suspended sentence.

Terry

I read about this last week.
I did wonder why the priest handed over money if he had done nothing wrong.
Seems very strange.

Miguel_Sanchez

Maybe he thought nobody would believe him and just paid the money cause he thought they would leave him alone.

thelordofcheese

He probably thought that the public would decide that he was guilty straight away, to hell with the evidence.

Of late it's almost second nature for some people to assume the priest is in the wrong straight away.

Delboy05

micmclo wrote:

Tbh, the fact that they are Romanian has nothing to do with it.

Sure if the priest did nothing wrong, he had no reason to pay over anything. Why didn't he play back the tape before handing over the cash? Seems foolish to me.

I doubt he had anthing to worry about. I'd believe a priest over most ordinary people but maybe I'm alone in that.

the wife's irish, he's romanian. The fact he's romanian has a lot to do with it as 1 of the stories they told the priest to get cash off of him the last time, was that they were moving to Romania to set up a business.
The fact is that this man was given protection in this state after he claimed 'asylum' - I made several points in my post. I believe any immigrants to Ireland convicted of crimes should be deported upon completion of their sentence. How Romanians ever got asylum here in the 1st place was always beyond me.
I also believe the fact that the woman in this case avoided jail time simply because she has kids is a travesty. Where is the equality in that. Will the National Womens Council be out tomorrow looking for a review of this case...I doubt it. This country has been beaten into submission by the various representative groups and agencies, all paid for by the irish taxpayer, leaving us with insane results like in this case.

is_that_so

Terry wrote:

I read about this last week.
I did wonder why the priest handed over money if he had done nothing wrong.
Seems very strange.

People have been known to do very some very silly things when panicked. They obviously saw him as an easy touch. Priests are human as well and subject to the same frailties as the rest of us. I also imagine once you've paid up you're likely to be a target for anything. And as pointed out there is the credibility of the Church of late. The reference to the nationality of the husband and the wife's background does, on the other hand, serve to reinforce the perception that certain "types" and "nationalities" are more likely to do this.

thefinalstage

The country has been saved hundreds of thousands of Euro by giving her a suspended sentence. Both in Child care and prison costs.

Delboy05

thelastangryman wrote:

The country has been saved hundreds of thousands of Euro by giving her a suspended sentence. Both in Child care and prison costs.

same rationale could be applied to the husband....think of the savings in not sending him to prison. in fact, think of the savings if we shut all the prisons and sent no one down!!!

Terry

Ok, if the husband was given asylum here, for whatever reason, that should be withdrawn as soon as he is released from prison and he should be deported.

However, I still think there is more to this than meets the eye.
Just my opinion.

Tigrrrr

Anyone remember what that case was recently where the judge adjourned his ruling to read up on what sort of preceding judgements were handed out to women who were charge with... I think... violent assault? I think it was the case in kildare where one woman stabbed another in the street. One solicitor expressed concern that the Judge was discriminating (or would be seen to be discriminating) in favour of the woman when handing down her sentence solely because of her sex, that she would not be given the same sentence as a man. And although the judge dismissed that, never really explained how one was supposed to take it otherwise.

By the way, interesting that the general mood is in favour of the priest despite very dodgy circumstances. Might we take from this that as generalisations and barstool bitching goes, perhaps even the priests are less hated than Roma?:eek:

Delboy05

Tigrrrr wrote:

By the way, interesting that the general mood is in favour of the priest despite very dodgy circumstances. Might we take from this that as generalisations and barstool bitching goes, perhaps even the priests are less hated than Roma?:eek:

what very 'dodgy circumstances'? The priest did nothing wrong...only think he's guilty of in my opinion is being a bit innocent and naieve. Probably panicked when approached about a video and given some of the publicity around priests in the papers over the past few years, it could be expected.

Voodu Child

Ship the two of them off to Romania.

I know the wife's Irish, but we seem to import more than our fair share of that countries thieving bast*rds, time to give a give a few back.

Mossy Monk

Four years suspended. That is ****ing ridiculous.

_blank_

Did he get his money back?

cooperguy

Terry wrote:

I read about this last week.
I did wonder why the priest handed over money if he had done nothing wrong.
Seems very strange.

Not really. If they go to the media then it would create alot of unwanted attention for the man. Once your name gets associated with something like that its hard to get people to forget. Especially if your a priest

galwayrush

Deport the Scum after Prison, likes of them give decent asylum seekers a bad name,.Simple, criminal offense, out.