Carlow woman receives 80 hours’ community service for misappropriation of funds
Carlow Courthouse. Photo: Michael O'Rourke
A CARLOW woman has been sentenced to 80 hours of community service for allowing over €12,000 of misappropriated funds to be funnelled through her bank account. Dion Timmons (23) Chaffe Street, Graiguecullen Carlow entered a guilty plea for a single count under section 7 of the on 11 November 2025.
The offending took place between 5 and 28 April 2022, when the accused was 19 years’ old. There were 19 transfers of €350 into Ms Timmons’s N26 account during this time and four further transactions arising out of fraud perpetrated on German residents. All monies, a total of €12,374.64, were debited to a Luxembourg bank account on 28 April. Ms Timmons’s account was subsequently closed by the bank owing to suspicions over the origin of the funds.
At a sentencing hearing recently, the court was told that Ms Timmons was going through a period of emotional instability when she committed the offence. She did not benefit materially from committing the offences and the court accepted there was a “sophisticated network of individuals who set up the account”.
At the finalisation of sentencing on 5 March, Judge Mary Morrissey said: “It is quite clear Ms Timmons did not play a key role in any (criminal) organisation.”
Based on the nature of the offending and the offender, she set a headline sentence for Ms Timmons at 24 months’ imprisonment. She assessed the moral culpability of the accused as moderate, as when she was approached to set up an account she “did so freely, albeit naively”.
She reduced this by 25% on account of Ms Timmons’s early plea. She also considered her letter of apology, no previous or subsequent offending, her now good family support, history of mental health difficulties, four character references which spoke highly of her character, and a probation report, which categorised her as low risk of reoffending, reducing the sentence to 16 months.
The now 23-year-old student at Carlow College has a part-time job and a long-term goal of becoming an educational psychologist.
Judge Morrissey was satisfied that this was not “entrenched criminal behaviour” and made the decision to impose a community service order in lieu of a custodial sentence.
“Ms Timmons, the very best of luck to you. I hope we never meet again,” said Judge Morrissey. The sentence will be finalised on 20 May 2026.
