Donna Magee loses appeal over €270,000 solicitor fraud sentence

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Donna Magee pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to stealing more than €270,000 from her former employer, O'Mara Geraghty McCourt Solicitors. On 31 March 2017, Judge Martin Nolan sentenced her to three years in prison, with the final 18 months suspended. The proceedings were reported on 9 May 2017.

The Court of Appeal dismissed her sentence appeal on 9 May 2017, viewing the net 18-month custodial sentence as lenient. Giving judgment, Mr Justice Alan Mahon said Magee had stolen €270,597 by transferring money from a practice account to a personal account while working as a financial controller at the firm between 2008 and 2009.

Mr Justice Mahon said €173,000 was subsequently recovered from the bank through civil proceedings. The report said Magee had served a nine-month sentence in Northern Ireland in 2014 for VAT fraud involving more than £100,000 and dating back to 2010. She also had an earlier fraud conviction in Northern Ireland from 2002.

Magee's lawyers had submitted that her recently served nine-month sentence had not been taken into account. Mr Justice Mahon said the sentencing judge had referred to that sentence and was therefore understood to have considered it and factored it into the discount for mitigation.