Jail for Donegal man over €104,000 cocaine haul

A Donegal man has been jailed after being caught with over €104,000 worth of cocaine.

Mark McMonagle, who was nabbed with almost one-and-a-half kilograms of the drug, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison with the final two years suspended.

Judge John Aylmer said that the minimum custodial sentence he could impose on McMonagle, a 26-year-old with an address at Sylvan Park, Gortlee, Letterkenny, was 18 months.

When standard remission, which is applied for good behavior, is considered, McMonagle could be freed from jail in 13 and a half months.

Gardai located 1,488.3 grams of cocaine, worth €104,181, concealed in a clothes bag in a Vauxhall Combo van being driven by McMonagle on January 8, 2021 after the accused failed a drug-driving test at a checkpoint.

McMonagle had previously pleaded guilty to the possession of a controlled drug, namely cocaine, for the purpose of selling or otherwise supplying it.

The accused, who stood with his head bowed as Judge Aylmer passed judgement, was comforted by emotional family members as he was led away by prison officers to begin his term behind bars.

McMonagle was arrested and taken to Letterkenny Garda Station, where a small bag of cocaine was located in his wallet during the course of a search. McMonagle appeared ‘nervous and agitated’ and he was informed that the vehicle would be searched.

The facts of the case were outlined by Garda Eimear Hassett, who told Ms Patricia McLaughlin BL, counsel for the State, that she was on duty at an MIT (mandatory intoxicant testing) checkpoint at Drumbuoy, Lifford when she and Garda Stephen Campbell stopped the Vauxhall Combo van.

Three large bags, which McMonagle confirmed were his, were recovered from the rear of the van. Inside one of the bags, Garda Hassett located a plastic SuperValu which contained six individually wrapped packages of a white substance.

Initially, McMonagle denied any knowledge of the contents when questioned.

Later, McMonagle told Gardai: “You think those were mine? Those drugs aren’t mine and were not for me. I don’t know the weight, quantity or value. It is quite clear what is happening here.”

Garda Eimear Hassett. (North West Newspix)

McMonagle admitted that he was transporting the drugs from Dublin to Donegal for someone else and admitted to knowing that it was cocaine. McMonagle would not disclose who he was couriering the drugs for, declining to identify anyone ‘for his own safety’.

References to an envelope with €200 in it were found on McMonagle’s iPhone, but he refused to comment on this during an interview with Gardai.

Garda Hassett said it was her belief that McMonagle was couriering the drugs for a financial reward. The accused has no previous convictions.

Asked by Mr Colm Smyth SC, barrister for McMonagle, about a death threat sent to McMonagle in the post, Garda Hassett said she believed that a letter was sent to a family member.

Put in the witness box by his barrister, McMonagle told the court that he felt ‘terrible’ that he drew some work colleagues into the situation.

McMonagle said he was introduced to cocaine at a young age and became addicted. “I got involved with the wrong crowd,” he said. McMonagle said the ‘run down the road’ with the cocaine stash was carried out in order to clear a debt.

Mr Colm Smyth SC, barrister for Mark McMonagle. (North West Newspix)

The court heard that the accused received a letter from what was described as a ‘vigilante group’ and he is in fear ‘every day’.

He said he had also been threatened by the people who had given him the drugs. A repayment to the value of the drugs was needed, he said.

TV personality and hotelier Noel Cunningham, a former Donegal Person of the Year who the court heard was a ‘very close family friend’, submitted a reference on behalf of McMonagle.

Mr Cunningham described McMonagle as ‘a very fine young man who made one terrible mistake’.

Ms Gabrielle McMonagle, the mother of the defendant, said her son is now drug free and is working full time to provide for his family. In a reference, which was mentioned in court by Mr Smyth, Ms McMonagle said she was ‘totally shocked’ with the incident and said her son was now drug free and has ‘learned a tough lesson’.

A now-retired Garda Walsh also tendered a reference on behalf of the accused. He said it was a ‘joy to behold’ how McMonagle has faced up to the charge and changed his life.

McMonagle’s new employer, who was aware of the charge when giving him a job in 2021, said he was an ‘invaluable’ member of the workforce and said the actions were ‘completely out of character’.

McMonagle, now a father of two young children, said he wanted to apologise for what he said were ‘despicable actions taken under pressure’. He said that with his two children facing the prospect of growing up without a father for a while that he wished he could turn back time.

The court heard claims that McMonagle amassed a debut of €2,500 as a consequence of his habitual use of cocaine.

“It does appear that he had a significant problem with the abuse of cocaine, developed over a number of years previous,” Judge Aylmer said. The Judge said there was a need for ‘deterrents’ in such cases and said the offense merited a starting point of five years imprisonment.

Judge John Aylmer. (North West Newspix)

“It involved the transport by him of a large quantity of cocaine,” Judge Aylmer said.

In mitigation, Judge Aylmer said the accused had no previous convictions and co-operated to a significant level, albeit that he refused to name who he was acting and transporting drugs for.

McMonagle had not come to adverse Garda attention since and had tendered an early plea of guilty. That he was caught red-handed, Judge Aylmer added, meant this did not have as much value as it otherwise would have.

Judge Aylmer accepted that McMonagle is remorseful and that he has taken ’significant step’ in rehabilitation by attending Donegal Youth Service and HSE counseling. McMonagle has been abstinent since July 2021 and has volunteered to assist the Donegal Youth Service, while he benefited from ‘excellent’ references.

A probation report, which deemed McMonagle as a low risk of reoffending, was described as ‘fairly positive’ by Judge Aylmer.

“He is a man with much to offer society,” Judge Aylmer said, adding that the presumptive minimum sentence of ten years for such offending would be ‘unjust’.

Judge Aylmer said he was reducing the sentence to one of three-and-a-half years imprisonment with the final two years suspended upon McMonagle entering into a bond of €100 to keep the peace and be of good behavior for two years subsequent to his release. McMonagle is to abstain completely from unprescribed drugs for those two years.

“The offence is too serious to suspend the entirety of it,” Judge Aylmer said. “Transporting such a large quantity of cocaine, the Court takes the view that it is above the threshold, in other words that it is too serious to consider suspending the entirety.”

A destruction order was granted in respect of the drugs.