Man jailed for eight years for €200k of heroin
A Clondalkin man who was caught walking through a park with almost €200,000 worth of heroin in his backpack has been jailed for eight years.
Wesley Keeler (aged 29) of Liscarne Gardens, Clondalkin had pleaded not guilty to possession of heroin for sale or supply at California Hills Park, Rossmore Road, Clondalkin on October 3, 2008.
He was found guilty by a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury after a three-day trial last month.
Garda Linda Ryan told Mr Garnet Orange BL, prosecuting, that while on mountain bike patrol in Ballyfermot, she observed a man drop a black bag from his back as he walked through the California Hills park.
When stopped by garda Ryan and her colleague, the man identified himself as Wesley Keeler but denied that the bag was his.
The backpack was searched by garda Ryan and was subsequently found to contain one kilogramme of heroin with an estimated street value of €195,500.
Defence counsel, Mr Bernard Condon SC, told the court that at the time of the committal of the offence Keeler had relapsed following a three-year hiatus from heroin.
Mr Condon said that Keeler's life was “chaotic” and that he had gone missing from the home he shared with his partner and taken to sleeping in hostels.
Judge Martin Nolan said that he was bound to consider the minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years in relation to Keeler’s offence.
He said that there were few mitigating factors open to Keeler, who has nine previous convictions, as he did not offer an early plea of guilty and did not cooperate with gardaí at any stage.
Judge Nolan imposed an eight-year sentence and said that he accepted that Keeler was “a very small cog” in a larger drugs operation and that he was a relatively poor man with few assets to show.
