A man who tried to hire a hitman to kill a Canadian couple his wife had met online has received a four-and-a-half year prison sentence.
Bryan Kennedy, of Mount Tallant Avenue in Harold’s Cross, claimed he did it for “love and heartbreak” after discovering intimate chats between them on Facebook.
Three years ago he engaged a man referred to as 'Mr X' with a view to having Canadian couple Stephanie Poirier and Clara Houde-Brunette killed.
After hacking into his wife’s Facebook account, he discovered that she had been having intimate chats with the couple online and was planning to move over to them.
He told a friend his wife no longer loved him and had stopped wearing her wedding ring.
The court heard he paid Mr X €8,000 and when he couldn’t find an additional €2,000 to pay for the double-hit, Mr X started threatening him and his family.
It later emerged that Mr X had fooled him into believing he could arrange to have them killed.
Before sentencing Kennedy, the judge said she had to consider that he was the one who approached Mr X and not the other way around and that he had handed over €8,000 in the belief it would be used to murder two people.
His sentence won’t begin until mid-April to allow him time to get his affairs in order.
