Since his imprisonment last December for stealing €18m from financial institutions, he has been a “model” inmate in the Progression Unit, which has ensured he earns maximum pocket money
Since his imprisonment last December for stealing €18m from financial institutions, he has been a “model” inmate in the Progression Unit, which has ensured he earns maximum pocket money.
Inmates in the unit enjoy a more relaxed regime, including marginally reduced security measures, as they are deemed low-risk for criminal behaviour.
In 2012, the Irish Prison Service (IPS) decided inmates should not have an automatic entitlement to receive the same amount of pocket money; instead, they should earn it by proving they wanted to rehabilitate themselves.
There are three levels of pocket money. The lowest, called basic pay, is 95c a day, which inmates with little engagement in work, rehabilitation or education receive.
Those on standard pay get €1.70 a day, while those prisoners deemed to be exemplary can earn €2.20 a day – enhanced pay.
Lynn (55), who shares a cell with one other prisoner, earns enhanced pay for his work in the gardens and in recognition of his good behaviour to date.
“He hasn’t caused any trouble — someone like him, a white-collar criminal, would not have been expected to cause problems,” a source said.
The one-time property developer, from Mayo, was sentenced last February to five-and-a-half years by Judge Martin Nolan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Last December, a jury returned guilty verdicts on 10 of the 21 charges against him in what was his second trial after an earlier jury failed to reach a verdict.
The jury, which deliberated for six-and-a-half hours over two days following an eight-week trial, were unable to agree on the remaining 11 counts on the indictment.
Judge Nolan said he accepted Lynn was a person who had many good points — he was “energetic”, “very intelligent” and “accomplished”.
He said he believed he was capable of reform and of contributing to society “in due course”.
The judge set a headline sentence of 16 years, but reduced this to 13 after taking mitigating factors such as Lynn’s lack of previous convictions into consideration.
Judge Nolan said he would take into account the four- and-a-half years Lynn had spent in prison in Brazil, which would aggregate to seven-and-a-half years because the conditions in that jail had no doubt been “pretty inhumane”.
On that basis, he said, Lynn should receive a sentence of five-and-a-half years, starting from last December 20.
The IPS declined to comment.
