A 36-YEAR-OLD woman has been sentenced to four years in prison with the final year suspended for social welfare fraud, including theft during a four-year period when she pretended she had Huntington’s disease. 

Samantha Cookes entered a guilty plea last month at the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee to stealing over €60,000 from the Department of Social Protection.

Judge Ronan Munro said hers was “a carefully orchestrated plan” to take money from the State.

Cookes had “cynically exploited” the natural sympathy towards those with Huntington’s disease, a disease she chose deliberately to exploit sympathy, the judge said.

She had received 238 payments totalling €60,334 over almost four years.

This was “a deliberate fraud over a protracted period of time”, Judge Ronan Munro said, handing down sentence at Tralee Circuit Criminal Court today. 

The evidence in the case was heard two weeks ago and sentence was adjourned to today.

She had taken advantage of a respected GP to provide a medical certificate, as well as the restrictions of the Covid period to perpetuate the deceit, the court was told.

The thousands of euro were collected from the State first in supplementary welfare, and afterwards in disability allowances over almost a four year period, between 28 February 2020 and 12 June 2024, when Cookes persisted in a fraudulent claim that she suffered from a debilitating and ultimately terminal illness.

Supplementary welfare was a temporary form of payment issued in emergency situations for a temporary period of time, Tom Rice, barrister for the DPP, instructed by State solicitor Diane Reidy, outlined at the sentencing hearing in Tralee on 19 February.

In a hand-written letter in February 2020 to officers of the Department, Cookes said she had been diagnosed with Huntington’s Disease.

She said her disease was a disease of the brain, life-limiting and terminal, and claimed she was unable to see a neurologist because of Covid restrictions.

When the Department of Social Protection sought to put her on disability allowance and sought certification for her illness, Cookes “fought fire with fire”, Rice put it to investigating garda Ray Liston, who agreed.

Cookes accused the Department of “major discrimination” against her when they tried to carry out checks and ask for medical and other qualifying documentation.

She wrote strong letters of complaint saying she was no longer able to hold a pen and could not access support because of Covid regulations.

She insisted that depression, dementia and death were all parts of her condition, which she said was a mix of Parkinsons and Alzheimers.

She led a respected GP into filling out a form in 2020 saying she had been already diagnosed with the disease and referencing other medical people. She led the doctor to believe she was struggling to grip things, use the stairs, shower and her balance and coordination were affected, the case heard previously .

Sentencing

Judge Munro noted how when the Department attempted to get Cookes to provide more details and attempted to impose “normal checks and controls”, she said she was housebound and also claimed she had tremors in her hands and was unable to use a pen.

She also claimed major discrimination.

The fraud became “even more sophisticated” when Cookes presented to the social welfare department medical evidence from a well-known GP in September 2021.

But the judge said she ran out of road because, when referred for scans and such by the GP, she failed to turn up.

“The GP who supplied the medical cert is blameless,” the judge said.

Part of the aggravating features of the case is that Cookes selected the disease particularly, knowing the natural sympathy that would be forthcoming, he said.

This sympathy had been “cynically exploited” by Cookes, the judge said, adding that but for the Covid pandemic, the fraud would have been uncovered far quicker.

Judge Munro said that this was not a case where someone got something for longer than they should have, but was “a carefully orchestrated plan to get money from the State.”

It was an abuse of the public system and of genuine claimants, he said.

GP time and resources and public money had been diverted for gain, he also said.

Cookes’s offending had taken place over a protracted period and what was particularly offensive was exploiting the natural sympathy people had for Huntington’s disease, the judge said.

Cookes had declined psychological assessment in prison, saying she did not wish to cost the State any more money, the judge noted. In so far as mental health issues were advanced, he had no evidence.

Cookes had written a letter to the judge saying she was the victim of her psychosis, but Judge Munro said he would not accept self-diagnoses.

“Many people have mental health issues and they don’t engage in this type of crime,” the judge also said.

“I place very little weight on the letter and I don’t accept any self-diagnoses and it carries very little weight.”

Judge Munro said Samantha Cookes had not come before the court with a clean record. She had five previous convictions for similar type offences – including taking money for a children’s trip to Lapland which never happened and posing as a psychologist.

On the mitigating side, there had been a guilty plea. The court was also told she was been engaging in education in prison, studying sociology, business, personal development and calligraphy and how she also works two days a week in the prison laundry, he noted.

The maximum headline sentence was five years for fraud. Noting her guilty plea, Judge Munro reduced this to four years, suspending the final year for a period of four years so she can get treatment as she had indicated.

The sentence will be backdated to July 2024 when she was arrested.

At the time of her arrest last July outside the post office in Tralee where she had collected a payment, she had been living under a false name in Tralee for 18 months, the court was told previously.

Guilty plea

Samantha Cookes had pleaded to a number of sample charges, including two counts of deception charges and 16 theft charges.

She pleaded guilty that on dates unknown between 20 February 2020 and 6 October 2021 at Godfrey Place, Tralee, she dishonestly and with the intention of making a gain for herself or another by falsely stating that she had a medical diagnosis of Huntington’s disease, induced employees of the Department of Social Protection to give her Supplementary Welfare Allowance Payments amounting to €17,747 contrary to Section 6 of the Criminal Justice ( Theft and Fraud Offences) Act, 2001

The second deception charge involving €40,264 related to the period between 3 September 2021 and 1 July 2024 also at Godfrey Place Tralee, again falsely stating that she had a medical diagnosis of Huntington’s disease.

She also answered “guilty” to sixteen sample counts of theft of supplementary welfare allowance payments of €201 and of €289.50 contrary to Section 4 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act, 2001.