The Court of Appeal has quashed the sentences imposed on Miren Rakovac for possessing drugs for sale or supply and possessing the proceeds of criminal conduct, finding the overall sentencing package unduly lenient. It resentenced him to concurrent three-year terms, suspending the final six months of each.
The ex tempore judgment, delivered on 10 October 2022, followed a review sought by the Director of Public Prosecutions under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993. The court said the original sentence gave excessive discounts for mitigation and suspended too much of the custodial term. It also ruled that the money-laundering offence, which was a separate charged count, should have received its own sentence rather than being taken into consideration.
The offences arose from a search of Rakovac’s Cork residence on 25 October 2020. Garda evidence at sentencing was that officers seized 256 grams of cocaine, valued at €17,943, and 155 grams of cannabis, valued at €3,102, along with drug paraphernalia. They also found €35,000 in a safe and €685 in a wallet. The judgment records that Rakovac admitted the cash came from drug dealing. The sentencing court ordered the €35,685 forfeited to the State; the Court of Appeal confirmed the forfeiture order.
Rakovac had pleaded guilty to both offences. The sentencing judge set a five-year headline sentence for the drug offence, reduced it to two and a half years and suspended the final 18 months. The judge took the proceeds offence into consideration. In the appeal, the DPP accepted that the five-year headline sentence and departure from the presumptive minimum for the drug offence were within the sentencing judge’s discretion, but argued that the final punishment was too lenient and that the second offence needed a separate sentence.
The Court of Appeal agreed. It said the mitigation did not justify the degree of discount and suspension, and that the charged proceeds offence was only indirectly related to the drug offence. The court set five-year headline sentences for both offences, reduced each by two years for mitigation, then suspended the final six months. It made the terms concurrent, running from 25 February 2022, and retained the existing suspension conditions, with the suspension period changed to six months.