Disgraced hurling star DJ Carey jailed over £350k cancer scam | Other | Sport

Former hurling star DJ Carey has been jailed for five-and-a-half years after admitting to defrauding friends, family members and fans out of almost £350,000 to treat a cancer he never had. The Kilkenny icon was due to be sentenced last week, but provided a medical certificate explaining why he could not attend court. 

On Friday, he appeared at the Criminal Court of Justice in Dublin, where a judge told the 54-year-old that a sentence would be passed down on Monday. He was jailed for over five years after pleading guilty to 10 counts of dishonesty, including people to pay him money after fraudulently claiming to have cancer and needing finances for treatment.

The 10 counts Carey pleaded guilty to involved 13 complainants in total, including billionaire businessman Denis O’Brien.

A further eight charges of dishonesty inducing others to pay money and two counts of using a false instrument with the intention of inducing another to accept it as genuine were taken into consideration by the court.

The former GAA All-Star defrauded in total €394,127 and $13,000 US dollars over a period between 2014 and 2022. As much as €44,200 has been repaid, leaving €349,927 and $13,000 US dollars outstanding.

Carey had told injured parties that he had cancer and needed money as he was undergoing treatment in Seattle.

On Monday, Judge Martin Nolan said that Carey “took advantage of people’s good nature and goodwill towards him”.

The judge claimed that it was a “very low fraud” and described Carey’s behaviour as “reprehensible” and “very serious”.

Carey said that he had promised to repay money, but the judge said that “he knew at the time he could never repay the money”.

Carey had earlier been described in court as “one of the best known hurlers ever” and that his reputation had been destroyed by the scam, before imposing a global sentence of five and a half years.

The judge had set a global headline sentence of eight to 10 years, before handing Carey a four-year sentence and a consecutive one-and-a-half-year sentence.

Carey had no reaction in court as the sentence was imposed.

His lawyer said that Carey had asked him “to offer a heartfelt and sincere apology” to all of the injured parties.