Con woman sentenced to 25 months in prison for defrauding widower
Catherine O’Brien at Waterford Circuit Court. Photo: Dan Linehan
Convicted fraudster Catherine O’Brien has received a 25 month sentence for dishonestly inducing a man out of €22,000.
O'Brien, of An Grianan, Ballinroad, Dungarvan, Co Waterford, dishonestly induced John Blake into paying her €20,000 to purchase a horse named Lingreville, €1,100 for insurance and €984 to transport the horse from France to Ireland.
O’Brien cajoled and manipulated her victim into parting with his life savings to pay for the fictional horse, its transport and insurance.
During a three-week trial in July, evidence presented showed that the broodmare Lingreville had never been purchased or had never entered Ireland. The jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts in just under 40 minutes.
O’Brien first met Mr Blake in late 2017 through the dating website ‘Plenty o’Fish’ and presented herself as a successful and highly-regarded expert in the equine industry. When he first met O’Brien, he was seeking companionship.
In March 2018 she encouraged him to pay €20,000 for the ‘breeding rights’ of a stallion horse she claimed to own, named Shakeel. Soon afterwards, she suggested that he buy a broodmare from France to maximise his investment on the stallion.
There began a series of lies that left Mr Blake without his life savings. Mr Blake took out a €14,000 Credit Union loan to pay for the ‘horse’, a loan he had to pay back. In total, he gave O’Brien just over €42,200 throughout their correspondence.
O’Brien sent him pictures purporting to be his horse and foal throughout the year, and scurried any attempts he made to see the horse.
Mr Blake discovered the lie in September 2019, when he went to John Walsh’s home in Lismore and was told by his wife that there was no horse named Lingreville.
O’Brien was charged by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in September 2021.
In October 2021, O’Brien and Mr Walsh paid Mr Blake €22,000 in a "settlement".
On Wednesday, January 14, O’Brien appeared at Waterford Circuit Court via video-link from Limerick Prison. She appeared before Judge Eugene O’Kelly, who oversaw her trial last July. O’Brien was seen sat in a wheelchair and accompanied by a male nurse. Throughout her appearance she made several wincing gestures. The court heard from her legal counsel Ronan O’Carroll BL that she wanted to be sentenced in the absence of a medical report.
Detective Garda Joe Wyse gave an outline of the case to State Prosecutor Dylan Redmond BL. Det. Wyse read out the victim’s impact statement, as Mr Blake was too ill to attend the court in person.
In the statement, Mr Blake described how the fraud left him feeling traumatised, embarrassed, scared and isolated. He began: “I am not a man of financial means. I am 69 years old. At age 44 I lost my wife to cancer, she was 41. I worked part-time to raise my five children. At age 60 I was diagnosed with bowel cancer, at 62 I had a stroke and at 64 I was diagnosed with stomach cancer.”
Mr Blake went through all these health emergencies while dealing with the financial and emotional fallout of the fraud.
He wrote: “I had to pick up work and at 68 I was diagnosed with prostrate cancer.”
He said that the trauma of the deceit has stolen years off his life, his health and time with his children. He wrote about struggling to tell his children about the deceit, and his anxieties and struggles to sleep.
“This seven year ordeal has traumatized me,” he said.
Mr O’Carroll told the court that O’Brien maintains her innocence and claims that the whole matter was a "mistake", but also expressed that she bore "no ill will" towards Mr Blake. The court heard that O’Brien had a lonely childhood in Cork. She had a short academic career in legal studies but gave it up after having her eldest daughter. She was described as being "self-employed" for a number of years, setting up different short-lived businesses. Mr O’Carroll said that she has two adult daughters but they had a "strained relationship" due to her legal issues.
In 1999 she was charged with making a false report to Gardaí relating to a "missing car" in Kanturk, Co Cork. Mr O’Carroll noted that she should be seen as having an "unblemished record" due to the vintage of the conviction, which was accepted by Judge O’Kelly. According to Mr O’Carroll, O’Brien has a "low-risk of re-offending" and intends to work in the equestrian industry post release. He said that her "dreams" of working in farming were "scuppered by her health issues".
Judge O’Kelly reiterated how O’Brien presented the scam as a "zero-risk" investment to her victim.
He described O’Brien as taking advantage of an elderly man and leaving him "vulnerable, embarrassed and ashamed". Judge O’Kelly sentenced her to 20 months for the first count of fraud, and five months for the latter charges. The first two charges are to run concurrently, while the third will be served consecutively due to the time range. The sentence was backdated to July 2025.
