Former Irish rugby international player Brendan Mullin has been sentenced to three years in prison for stealing over €570,000 while chief executive officer of Bank of Ireland Private Bank.
The 61-year-old, who earned 55 caps for Ireland during his rugby union career before retiring in 1995 and starting a career in finance, was convicted in November after having pleaded not guilty to false accounting and stealing he sum from the bank between 2011 and 2013.
A trial jury found him guilty of 12 out of 14 charges related to his time as CEO of the private bank, which followed an investigation by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau.
During the trial it emerged that Mullin, from the Donnybrook area of Dublin, stole half-a-million euros during a communication breakdown within the arms of the banking group, with the money transferred to a company called Spice Holdings, a client Mullin had brought into the bank and registered in the British Virgin Islands.
The trial heard allegations that the former Leinster and British and Irish Lions player arranged for sums of money to be paid for work done either for him personally or for his firm Quantum Investment Strategies.
Mullin’s defence counsel said his client accepts the jury’s verdict, and that the former rugby star had suffered “a huge fall from grace.”
Mullin was described by a judge as being in a “position of trust and a position of power” when he committed the offences.
All of the money was paid back before the garda investigation began.
At sentencing, Judge Martin Nolan said Mullin was “remorseful and sorry” for his actions, but added that a custodial sentence was inevitable as he handed down a jail term of three years.