A man who made a false insurance claim in respect a Mercedes-Benz that wasn’t his has avoided jail after receiving an 18-month suspended sentence.
Donatas Sadauskas (41), previously of Sallins Pier, Co Kildare, but now living in the UK, claimed that the expensive car, which was parked in Dalkey, had been stolen and made a claim for €19,500, claiming that he had purchased the vehicle from someone in the UK for £16,000.
When he made the false claim in 2016, Sadauskas furnished the insurance company with false documents, photos of the car, and even handed them a key which he claimed belonged to the vehicle in question as part of the “elaborate scheme”.
He was brought back to Ireland to face justice on foot of a European Arrest Warrant and was taken into custody in Belgium, where he was held for one week.
His defending counsel, Sarah Connolly BL, said that her client had to leave Ireland for his native Lithuania in 2004 before he moved to the UK in 2015, where he set up an auto business.
Judge Orla Crowe said that “an abundance of resources” has to be spent in bringing Sadauskas to justice, noting that the insurance company, rather than the Gardaí, had investigated his false claims. She said that he now appears to be “law-abiding” in the UK, where he owns a house and has a partner.
He has donated vehicles to the “Ukrainian war effort” through a charity foundation, the court noted, adding that this work would be taken into consideration, but that his offending was “very deliberate”.
The court said that it would deal with the offending on a non-custodial basis, before setting a headline sentence of two years.
This term was reduced to 18 months, which was suspended in full on condition that he keep the peace for three years and enter into a cashless bond.