34-year-old Irish poker pro Paul Carr’s financial and legal woes continue, with Judge Carroll Moran of the Limerick Circuit Criminal Court ruling for the forfeiture to the State of Euro 242 230 found in a plastic shopping bag in a car by Limerick Gardai (see previous reports).
The money, mostly in Euro 50 notes and vacuum packed, was discovered by Gardai when the car was stopped and searched by divisional drug squad authorities in August 2011.
While authorities interviewed the driver of the car, Carr and the brother of the driver presented themselves at the police station claiming the money belonged to Carr who said he had won it in a Paddy Power-sponsored poker tournament held in Dublin.
Judge Tom O’Donnell in a separate court ruling, that involved another Euro 36 000 seized in a drug search at a house in Caherdavin in May 2011, said he was satisfied on the balance of probability that the money was the proceeds of crime.
Carr also claimed the money as his own saying he had given it to a friend for safe keeping as he didn’t own a bank account. However, the Euro 300 000-plus that he won in the 2010 poker competition was lodged into a bank account in his name claims an Independent Newspaper report.
This application was denied by the High Court on appeal and the Euro 36 000 forfeited to the State.