Shamed socialite Marcus Sweeney has boasted how he managed to avoid being detected for allegedly drink driving - by jumping into the back seat of his jeep close to a checkpoint pretending someone else was driving it.
The Celtic Tiger restaurateur- who last month settled a €100k case with the Criminal Assets Bureau by agreeing to hand over 2.78 hectares of land considered the proceeds of crime - said he told a garda at a checkpoint he “had no idea” who was driving his jeep.
The 45-year-old former partner of tragic model Katy French bragged about his ‘achievement’ during a video which he called ‘Gangster stories’ on social media.
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He claimed when he was younger he was leaving a nightclub in Dublin city centre in his brand new Range Rover jeep when he came across a garda checkpoint.
Fearing he’d be caught allegedly drink driving, he claimed he got out of the driver’s seat and jumped into the back of the jeep that was “full of ladies” and told a garda he didn’t know who was driving.
Bragging about his ‘gangster story’ to his viewers in a video on TikTok, Sweeney, who was one of the country’s most high-profile socialites during the Celtic Tiger, said: “You want to hear some gangster stories. I’ll give you a quick one.
“I was a young man driving through town. I had a new Range Rover Vogue. We left a nightclub late at night.
“The jeep was full of ladies in the back and someone in the front. We came to a checkpoint outside The Ballsbridge Hotel and I was like shit. I was driving the car. I said what am I going to do? I was four cars back.
“Sh*t, sh*tt sh*t,” he said and explained he opened the door, jumped into the back seat and when a member of An Garda Siochana asked him who was driving the car, he said: “No idea, he said he’d drive, we left the club, he just jumped out of the car and legged it.”
The original poster boy for the lavish days of the Celtic Tiger, Sweeney continued telling his viewers the garda told him someone has to move his car.
And Sweeney proceeded to say he told the garda he had a few drinks on him. “Not a chance am I driving the car. No way,” he said he told the officer.
“I said ‘You drive it’ to the garda and he gave us a lift around the corner. We parked the car and got a taxi. That’s one little story to get ye going,” he laughed.
Last month a High Court judge appointed a receiver over the land, giving the receiver the power to engage auctioneers and to lodge the sale proceeds with the State after he was informed there was consent before the court to do so.
And earlier, the CAB alleged EMW purchased the land for €102k using, in part, cash from unknown sources, another investment company and from an innocent investor.
The CAB’s application for the order under the 1996 Proceeds of Crime Act followed an extensive investigation into Sweeney’s firm.
Mr Justice Owens previously ruled on the application from the CAB seeking to deem the land linked to the 45-year-old’s firm the proceeds of crime.
During that ruling in January, Mr Justice Owens described the Celtic Tiger restaurateur as “up to his oxters” in organised crime.
The plot of land is located down a cul-de-sac just off the Summerhill Road in Waynestown, near Dunboyne in Co Meath.
At an earlier hearing, the judge said the bureau made out a “very compelling case” for him to rule there was a “high degree of probability” that the site at Waynestown was acquired by EWM with crime proceeds.
The court heard allegations Sweeney had business dealings with convicted heroin dealer Brian Grendon, from a major drugs gang known as The Family.
Sweeney had a relationship with Katy French, a model who died tragically from a cocaine overdose just days after her 24th birthday in December 2007.
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