The Court of Appeal has quashed a sentence imposed on Liudmyla Budash for laundering €491,955 and resentenced her to four and a half years in prison. It also ordered the confiscation of the money.
The court delivered its judgment on 4 February 2025 after the Director of Public Prosecutions appealed the sentence as unduly lenient under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993. It found that the original headline sentence of three and a half years was too low, outside the sentencing judge’s discretion and a substantial departure from the norm. The appeal court also found that the resulting final sentence was too low. It quashed the sentence and resentenced Budash.
Budash had pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering. The offence took place on 12 April 2024. Garda evidence at the original sentencing hearing was that she was found on Crampton Quay in Dublin with a suitcase containing €491,955 in cash, packed into bundles. A vacuum packing machine and elastic bands were found in the Dublin hotel where she had been staying, and photographs of the cash were found on her phone.
The appeal court said the amount of money, Budash’s active role and her arrival in Ireland the day before she was detected pointed to serious, planned offending. It set a headline sentence of seven years. The court said her signed guilty plea, lack of previous convictions, children and personal circumstances were mitigating factors. It treated the plea as significant despite circumstances suggesting she had been caught red-handed. It also noted that she had fled Ukraine and sought refuge in France, and that serving a sentence in Ireland would impose additional hardship, while giving less weight to that hardship because she had travelled to Ireland to offend.
The court reduced the seven-year headline sentence by two years and six months, resulting in a four-and-a-half-year custodial sentence. It said there was an “element of unreality” in suspending part of the sentence, noting that Budash’s children were being cared for in France and that the court had been informed she was subject to a deportation order to be executed on release. The judgment did not suspend any part of the new sentence.