Gangland killer Dessie Dundon’s fiancée jailed for money laundering

CRIME boss Dessie Dundon’s fiancée has been jailed for 18 months for money laundering.

Ciara Lynch, 33, accepted €50,000 which the court heard was part-payment for the Dundon gang organising the murder of hitman Robbie Lawlor.

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It was made clear to the court that Lynch had nothing to do with Lawlor’s murder.

He was shot dead outside a house in Belfast in April 2020.

Cops believe this was in revenge for the gruesome killing of Keane Mulready-Woods, 17, at the height of the Drogheda drugs feud three months earlier.

Lynch was sentenced at Portlaoise Circuit Court on June 21 for one count of money laundering.

She pleaded guilty after being caught red-handed by undercover cops taking hold of the €50,000 while sitting in a car with a friend.

The cash pick-up happened in the car park of the Midway Food Court in Portlaoise, Co Laois, on April 6, 2020.

Hitman Lawlor’s killing of Keane shocked the nation. The teen’s body was dismembered and dumped around Dublin and Drogheda afterwards.

The late traveller gangster Cornelius Price was feuding with Lawlor at the time.

Officers say the €50,000 was part payment to the Dundon gang for agreeing to set up the contract killer.

At a previous hearing, Judge Keenan Johnson told Lynch her money laundering rap was “a serious offence involving a significant sum of money that assists serious criminals”.

Before being caged, Lynch visited Dessie in Dublin’s Mountoy Prison every week.

They recently got engaged and plan to marry on his release.

He’s served over 22 years of a life sentence for the murder of rival gang boss Kieran Keane in Limerick in 2003 and is due to be freed from prison shortly.

Lynch is now being detained in the Dochas Women’s Centre, just yards from her fiancé.

She has three previous convictions but has never been jailed before.

Last week, we told how Dundon has jeopardised a possible early release after a stash of tablets were found in his jail cell.

He was booted out of Mountjoy’s progressive wing and back into the main prison following the routine search of his quarters earlier this month.

Dundon, 41, had been hoping to be transferred out of Mountjoy to Castlerea Prison later this year as part of his first step to freedom.

But now the seizure of the tablets has seriously undermined that.

A Mountjoy source said: “Dessie had been keeping his nose clean and was in the Progressive Unit along with the best behaved prisoners in Mountjoy.

“It gave him a lot of extra privileges and gave him a better chance of getting out of jail quicker.

“The search of his cell has changed all that. We found a substantial amount of tablets in his cell.

“The tablets were all taken away for forensic examination and a full investigation launched.

“He was moved out of progressive wing and back into the main prison.”