A Galway district court judge has expressed concern for the “ready market” out there for stolen computers and the implications this type of theft has on jobs, invaluable work, and private information.
Judge Mary Fahy made the comments at Monday’s sitting of Galway District Court before imposing a seven-month jail sentence and a further seven-month suspended sentence on Jan Laszewski for handling stolen laptops.
The 30-year-old, with an address at 21 The Links, Ballymoneen Road, Knocknacarra, pleaded guilty to two counts of handling stolen property, possession of drugs, and theft.
Inspector Pat McHugh told the court that on February 25, 2010, gardai conducted a search at the defendant’s home and found two laptops. Laszewski admitted that he had bought the laptops knowing that they had been stolen. One laptop had been stolen from an ESB office in Tuam during a burglary on November 30, 2009, while the other laptop had been taken from a house in the Belmont housing estate in Renmore on September 24, 2009. The court also heard that when gardai arrived the defendant was observed smoking a joint.
Regarding the theft charge, Inspector McHugh said that gardai received a call to go to Dunnes Stores in Westside on May 26, 2009, where the defendant had been seen on CCTV taking goods, valued at €16.54, and detained by security. The defendant has no previous convictions.
Defence solicitor Adrian MacLynn said that Laszewski, a Polish national, has been in the country since May 2007 and has held down various jobs. However when he lost his work the defendant “engaged in these activities”, said Mr MacLynn, who added that his client admitted from the beginning that he knew the laptops came “from a dubious background”.
“We’ve been through this before in relation to computers and how people are losing their work. The loss of a computer is a huge one and has to be treated seriously. There’s a ready market out there for these computers,” said Judge Fahy.
Inspector McHugh then said that in most cases the owners’ work and information is wiped off the computer so that it can be sold on again.
Laszewski was sentenced to seven months in jail for one count of handling stolen property while for the second count he received a seven month sentence suspended for 12 months on condition that he enter into a bond of €500 to be of good behaviour. He was also fined €200 and leave to appeal was granted.
