Victims of a sprawling fraud scheme poured into Rhode Island’s federal courthouse in the US on Tuesday as a Dublin contractor was sentenced to more than four years in prison.*
They shared accounts of how he charmed and then conned them out of their savings under the pretence of unnecessary home repairs. “I have nothing now,” a retired school crossing guard told the court.
John O’Brien was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison for his role in a scheme prosecutors say affected more than 100 victims in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
O’Brien apologised, in audible tears, calling his actions “foolish”. He told the court: “I stand here before [you] today [with] a heavy heart”, that he takes “full responsibility” for his actions.
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His lawyer, Todd A Spodek, asked the court for a three-year sentence due to his lack of a criminal record, remorse and character statements. But chief judge Jack McConnel declared he was instead sentencing O’Brien to “every single day” prosecutors asked for because of “the extent and breadth of the harm” done to victims who opened their doors to O’Brien out of kindness and trust.
O’Brien pleaded guilty to wire fraud amounting to $1.5 million (€1.3 million). Prosecutors told the court O’Brien’s enterprise likely netted him more than $2.5 million over the course of 3½ years, after coming to the United States on a tourist visa in 2021 to seek better opportunities for his family. Prosecutors argued that O’Brien’s version of the American dream relied on “deceit and deception”.
Candace Gauvin, the retired school crossing guard, said O’Brien initially approached her while she was tidying the front walkway of the Cranston home her grandfather had built.
“I think he must have kissed the Blarney Stone because he had an excellent gift of gab,” she told the court. She said that she hired O’Brien after he warned her that her wooden stairs were dangerous and needed to be replaced.
“I paid him what I had and he kept coming to my house every other day,” she said. At one point, she said O’Brien warned her of an ominous dream he had about her house falling over and suggested more repairs.
So she emptied a life insurance account, eventually paying him more than $90,000, she said. Detailing her financial losses, she also said the cement additions O’Brien added were crumbling and infested with ants.
Gauvin was one of eight victims who shared their experience with the court. Prosecutors allege that federal agents tracked down 116 victims and that the scheme involved money launderers, fake employment stubs, and a fake social security number. O’Brien used the proceeds to “feed a lavish lifestyle”, driving luxury cars, buying expensive watches, and going on lavish trips with his wife and three children, prosecutors said.
More than a dozen individuals in Ireland and the United States submitted character references on behalf of O’Brien, depicting him as a loving father who struggled to find landscaping work after dropping out of school at age 15.
“Putting him in prison is like putting a goldfish in a shark tank,” his younger brother, Thomas O’Brien, wrote in a letter.
Fr Stephen Monaghan of the Vincentian Community wrote that he had known O’Brien “all his life” and that he was a “reliable and hard-working young man”.
Senator Eileen Flynn wrote of O’Brien’s “kindness and strength of character” and advocated for his early release for the “benefit of his young family”. The court heard that O’Brien’s wife and three children were living in a caravan on his parents’ property in Ballyfermot and were at risk of being displaced from that home.
O’Brien is being held at the Wyatt Detention facility. Spodek requested that O’Brien be moved to the Fort Dix prison in New Jersey to be close to the attorney. O’Brien is set to be deported to Ireland after serving his sentence. By pleading guilty, he waived the right to an appeal.
* This story has been edited to correct an error in the original report which erroneously said O’Brien had been sentenced to almost six years.
