Woman solicited poker dealer to kill partner

Ireland -- A CLARE woman has been found guilty of soliciting a former Las Vegas poker dealer to kill her partner and his two sons by a jury after three days of deliberation at the Central Criminal Court.

The jury took almost eight hours to find Sharon Collins (45), Ballybeg House, Kildysart Road, Ennis guilty of conspiring to kill PJ, Robert and Niall Howard between August 1st and September 26th, 2006.

The jury found her co-accused, Essam Eid (52), an Egyptian with a Las Vegas address, guilty of demanding €100,000 with menace from Robert Howard on September 26th, 2006.

He was found not guilty of robbing the offices of Downes Howard the previous night, but guilty of handling a stolen Toshiba laptop on September 26th and being in possession of items stolen from the offices at the Two Mile Inn Hotel in Limerick on September 27th, the date of his arrest.

After almost 11 hours of deliberation, the jury told Mr Justice Roderick Murphy they were unable to reach a verdict on the charges of conspiracy concerning Eid.

Mr Justice Murphy thanked the jury for "the role you played and the way you played it". He exempted them from jury service for the next 20 years.

During the eight-week trial, the jury heard Collins had been desperate to marry PJ Howard, but he had refused to marry her because they could not have a legally binding prenuptial agreement under Irish law. In November 2006, Collins contacted the website Proxymarriage.com and paid over €1,000 for a Mexican marriage certificate in the name Sharon Howard.

The court heard that in April 2005 Collins wrote to The Gerry Ryan Show on RTÉ radio, and in an anonymous letter accused Mr Howard of frequenting prostitutes and transvestites, and said she was trying to pluck up courage to leave him.

On August 2nd 2006, Collins created the e-mail address Lyingeyes98@yahoo.ie and used it to contact the website Hitman.us after searching the net for a contract killer and researching inheritance rights.

The jury heard the site had been set up in January 2006 from the house Eid shared with Lisa Eid and Teresa Engle.

A correspondence developed between Collins as Lying Eyes and a man calling himself Tony Luciano, with the e-mail address Hire_hitman@yahoo.com.

She supplied details of where Mr Howard and his two sons lived and socialised. She suggested that the two brothers could meet with some kind of accident and that Mr Howard's death could be made to look like suicide brought on by grief at the death of his sons.

Hire_hitman advised her that poison would be a better option for the two brothers and suggested a poison that would bring about a heart attack. He told her that for the three men it would cost $90,000 (then about €70,000) with a down payment of $45,000, the balance to be paid after the "hit". On August 15th Collins sent €15,000 in a FedEx delivery, with computer game goggles.

Eid flew to Ireland with Ms Engle on September 24th, 2006. They booked into Room 208 in the Two Mile Inn in Limerick.

On September 25th there was a robbery at the offices of Downes Howard. The Advent computer from reception was taken, with cables, a Toshiba laptop, a digital clock and a poster of old Irish bank notes. The following evening Eid rang Robert Howard posing as Tony Luciano. He told him he heard the Howards were missing some computers, and he would be at the house in five minutes.

He gave Robert the Toshiba laptop and told him there was a contract out on the lives of himself, his brother and his father. He offered him the chance to buy himself and his family out of the contract for €100,000.

He arranged to meet Robert the following evening at the Queens Hotel in Ennis. When he had gone, Robert rang the gardaí. They were waiting at the hotel the following evening when Robert met Eid.

Collins was arrested in February 2007 after an examination of the Advent computer, found dumped at the Queens Hotel, revealed e-mails between Lying Eyes and Hire_hitman.

In April 2007 a contact lens case which tested positive for Ricin was found in Eid's cell in Limerick Prison.

Mr Justice Murphy remanded both accused in custody until sentencing in October to allow for medical reports to be compiled for Eid and a psychological assessment on Collins.

Irish Times

News Added: 10 July, 2008

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