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Alan Caulfield DJ Carey to be sentenced today over €400,000 cancer fraud The sentencing of former Kilkenny hurler DJ Carey is expected to get under way at 1pm before Judge Martin Nolan in courtroom five of the Criminal Courts of Justice.On Friday afternoon, Judge Nolan warned the five-time All-Ireland winner that a custodial sentence is “inevitable” after hearing evidence of how he conned people out of nearly €400,000 by pretending he needed money for cancer treatment.Before the hearing finished, Judge Nolan asked prosecution barrister Dominic McGinn SC what is the maximum sentence that can be imposed.Mr McGinn said that deception carries a maximum prison term of up to five years.Carey spent the weekend at Cloverhill Prison after he was remanded in custody.Once again there is a large media presence in court. Carey made up “a story” that he needed money for treatment in the US and tricked friends including billionaire businessman Denis O’Brien, who said he was “completely duped” into giving him more than €130,000.The ex Kilkenny player maintained he was in a “desperate” financial situation due to bank debts when he carried out the fraud. He made fake hospital letters, showed victims scars on his head and lied that he could pay them back from a payout from a supposed medical negligence claim.Saying he thought jail was “inevitable”, Judge Martin Nolan remanded Carey in custody on Friday until this morning, when he will pass sentence.He said Carey’s victims should not feel foolish for trying to help him as they were “genuinely good people” who had responded generously in what they thought was Carey’s “hour of need.”Carey admitted 10 counts of dishonestly by deception inducing 13 victims to make monetary payment to him after he fraudulently claimed to have cancer and needed finances to obtain treatment, between 2014 and 2022.The named victims were Owen and Ann Conway, Mark and Sharon Kelly, Denis O’Brien, Aidan Mulligan, Tony Griffin and Christy Browne, Thomas Butler, Jeffrey Howes, Noel Tynan, Aonghus Leydon and Edwin Carey.Some eight other similar charges and two of using a false instrument - hospital letters - are to be taken into consideration.Carey (54) had been due to stand trial in July but entered guilty pleas.Detective Sergeant Mick Bourke told prosecutor Dominic McGinn SC during a sentencing hearing on Friday that the investigation began in 2022 after an alert from a financial institution where a customer who was “getting on in years” wished to transfer a large sum of money to Carey.This raised “a flag” and after this, another victim contacted gardaí to say they believed they had been deceived by Carey and handed money to him on the understanding that he needed medical treatment which “may not have been true.”Gardaí obtained financial records showing a series of deceptions by the accused. There were more than 20 victims.The total amount given to Carey was €394,127 and $13,000. Some victims were repaid, totalling €44,203 but most got no money back, with €349,927 outstanding.Carey had no previous convictions.He said he would have “lost everything from his house to his car” and was in a “desperate situation.” He told gardaí he had been treated for pericarditis, a viral condition affecting the heart wall and also had a heart condition that previously required surgery, but admitted he was in good health and had never got treatment abroad.Speaking on Friday, judge Martin Nolan said: “All the injured parties are to be complemented, they may feel foolish and taken advantage of but they were genuinely good people, good souls who responded to Mr Carey in a generous way in what they thought was his hour of need”.Carey will be sentenced later today.Andrew Phelan and Amy Molloy DJ Carey. Photo: Collins Denis O'Brien (pictured) was one of Carey's victims
