A DEPORTATION order has been made against a Romanian national jailed for six years for his part in a €60,000 jewellery theft.
Costel Rosloveanu (29) was part of a three-man gang that carried out a midnight raid at McCullagh’s Jewellers at Letterkenny Shopping Centre on October 2, 2017.
The gang, which included Rosloveanu, entered the premises through a hole they had cut in he roof.
Ms Fiona Crawford BL, prosecuting, said that goods to the value of €57,432.45 were stolen and €26,244.04 worth of damage was caused to the building.
Rosloveanu (29) with an address at Ballaghmore, Borris in Ossory, County Laois was charged with a count of burglary contrary to section 12 of the criminal justice, fraud and theft act and a count of criminal damage contrary to section 2.1 of the criminal damage act 1991.
At Letterkenny Circuit Court, Rosloveanu, speaking via an interpreter, pleaded guilty to the offences.
€6,000 worth of damage was caused to display cases in the shop. Gardaí recovered an axe and a sledge hammer upon examining the scene. Glass was scattered over the flood and the alarm box was smashed.
Gardaí believe the axe was also used to damage the roof.
Goods to the value of €56,909.45 were recovered and deemed re-sellable.
Officers searched wasteland near the shopping centre and located a number of items, including a jacket in which he found a wallet and a Romanian ID card bearing Rosloveanu’s name.
A rucksack containing a number of tools, a mobile phone and a torch was found while a black bin liner full of jewellery was recovered. Gardaí also found a grey bin containing customer details and items of jewellery.
Detective Garda Stephen McGonagle told the court that CCTV footage showed three men climbing onto the roof just after midnight on October 2, 2017.
At 00:57, two men left and came back carrying a ladder. One of the ladders – believed to have been taken from a service area near the Shopping Centre – was later found lowered into a roof space above another shop in the centre.
Rosloveanu has several previous and relevant convictions, including for offences in Italy, Romania and France.
Rosloveanu was previously served with a deportation order arising out of a matter for which he is serving a three-year sentence at Cloverhill prison.
Patrick McGrath, SC, Barrister for Rosloveanu, said his client came from a poor area of Romania, close to the Moldovan border,
“He has been married since 2014 and he has a five-year-old son,” Mr McGrath said.
“He only spoken to his son via video link and he is anxious to return home as soon as possible. He has every intention to take the earliest opportunity to leave and stay out of the country.”
Judge John Aylmer said the incident represented a ‘carefully planned and premeditated burglary’.
Judge Aylmer said he placed the burglary charge in the upper end of the mid-range and the criminal damage charge was also on the mid-range.
He sentenced Rosloveanu to six years imprisonment on the burglary charge and to two years and eight months imprisonment on the criminal damage charge. The sentences are to run concurrently and Judge Aylmer backdated the sentences to March 13, 2018, when Rosloveanu began a three-year sentence which he is currently serving.
Judge Aylmer made a deportation order for Rosloveanu to return to Romania on his release from prison and be excluded form re-entering the country for ten years thereafter.